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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


Ex  Libris 
'    C.  K.  OGDEN 


C/iAA^Avs     cL^y         /  *?  O    <£» 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY 
CRITICISM 


SOME  PRINCIPLES 


LITERARY    CRITICISM 


BY 

C.   T.   WINCHESTER 

PROFESSOR   OF   ENGLISH   LITKRATURB 
IN    WESLEYAN    UNIVERSITY 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  .fc  CO.,  Ltu. 

L902 

All  righto  r<mmd 


WS5 


Copyright,  1899, 
Bt  THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  June,  1899.      Reprinted  December, 
399  ;  September,  1900, ;  March,  1902. 


Nortoocrti  l$m<s 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  St  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

The  following  chapters  were  first  prepared  for 
the  college  lecture  room,  and,  although  since  re- 
written, they  doubtless  still  betray  by  a  certain 
dull,  didactic  manner  the  place  of  their  origin. 
While  directing  the  work  of  college  classes,  I  had 
often  looked  about  for  a  book  that  should  give  a 
compendious  statement  of  the  essentials  of  litera- 
ture and  the  grounds  of  critical  estimate.  Finding 
no  such  book,  I  essayed  to  make  one.  Two  or 
three  books  on  the  subject  —  born,  I  judge,  of  the 
same  want  that  produced  this  one  —  have  indeed 
appeared  since  these  lectures  were  first  written; 
bat  their  purpose  and  method  are  quite  different 
from  those  I  have  had  in  mind.  I  have  attempted 
er  to  expound  a  philosophy  of  criticism  nor 
bo  elaborate  a  critical  method;  but  simply  to  state, 
as  plainly  as  1  might,  some  qualities  that  by  com- 
mon consent  are  to  be  found  in  all  writing  deserv- 
ing to  be  called  Literature,  and  to  lay  down  some 
fundamental  principles  that  must  be  assumed  in 
all   sound   critical   judgments.       I  venture  to  hope 

T 


VI  PREFACE 

that  such  a  book,  though  intended  primarily  for 
the  student,  may  not  be  altogether  without  interest 
to  the  general  reader. 

A  work  which  professes  only  the  modest  purpose 
of  stating  a  few  truths  universally  admitted  can 
have  but  slender  claims  to  originality.  I  have, 
however,  acknowledged  in  the  text  my  specific 
obligations  to  others  whenever  I  have  myself  been 
aware  of  them.  I  should  mention  in  particular 
that  the  chapter  on  the  Imagination  owes  much 
to  Kuskin's  treatment  of  that  faculty  in  the  "  Mod- 
ern Painters  " ;  and  that  the  discussion  of  metrics, 
in  the  chapter  on  Poetry,  follows  in  the  main  the 
late  Sidney  Lanier's  theory  of  the  analogy  between 
music  and  verse. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  the  accuracy  and  judgment 
of  my  colleague,  Professor  William  E.  Mead,  who 
has  kindly  read  the  proofs  of  the  book. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  FIRST 

Definitions  and  Limitations 

Criticism  broadly  defined.  Three  methods  of  approach 
to  the  study  of  literature  :  1.  The  historical.  2.  The 
biographical.  .°..  The  critical.  Literary  criticism 
concerned  only  with  the  third.  Differs  from  rhet- 
oric.  Objections  to  a  methodical  criticism :  1.  No 
rational  appeal  from  individual  taste.  2.  Variations 
of  taste  among  competent  judges.  3.  Indefinite  va- 
riety of  literary  effects.  4.  Literature  the  expression 
of  personality,  and  therefore  cannot  be  subjected  to 
rule  or  classification.  These  objections  do  not  for- 
bid a  methodical  criticism,  but  do  impose  limitations 
upon  it 

CHAPTER   SECOND 

What  is  Literature  ? 

Definition  necessary,  but  difficult.  Most  definitions 
inertly  BUggestive  <>r  descriptive.  Examples  from 
Bainte-Beuve  and  Morley.  Any  book  deserving  to 
be  called  literature  must  not  only  contain  truths  of 
pennant  nt  value,  but  musl  itself  be  of  permanent 
value.  Power  to  appeal  to  the  emotions  the  essen- 
tial element  in  literature.  Explains,  1.  The  perma- 
vii 


Vlil  CONTENTS 


nence  of  the  book.  2.  Its  expression  of  the  author's 
personality.  3.  Its  interpretation  of  life.  Defini- 
tion wide  enough  to  include  all  varieties  of  literature. 
Divides  all  writing  of  value  into  literature  and  science. 
Three  other  elements  of  literature :  Imagination, 
Thought,  Form.     Summary 34 


CHAPTER  THIRD 

The  Emotional  Element  in  Literature 

Three  different  parties  of  whom  emotion  may  be  predi- 
cated. Two  kinds  of  emotion  excluded  from  litera- 
ture :  1.  The  self-regarding  emotions.  2.  Painful 
emotions.  The  problem  of  pathos  and  tragedy. 
Literary  emotions  too  various  for  classification.  Not 
all  to  be  accounted  forms  of  the  sense  of  beauty. 
But  are  perhaps  forms  of  our  sympathy  with  life. 
Transient  power  over  emotion  —  popularity  —  no 
test  of  literary  value.  Five  valid  tests  of  the  literary 
value  of  emotional  effects :  1.  Justice  or  propriety. 
2.  Vividness  or  power.  3.  Continuity  or  steadiness. 
4.  Range  or  variety.  5.  Rank  or  quality.  Ethical 
quality  of  the  best  literature.  Literature  and  prac- 
tical morality 62 

CHAPTER  FOURTH 

The  Imagination 

The  emotions  aroused  only  indirectly  and  through  the 
imagination.  The  term  imagination  used  to  cover 
different,  though  similar,  mental  processes.  Three 
principal  forms :  1.  The  creative,  with  allied  form 
of  fancy.      2.  The  associative,  with  allied  form  of 


CONTENTS  ix 

PASl 

fancy.  3.  The  interpretative.  The  imaginative 
presentation  of  nature.  The  pathetic  fallacy.  The 
Imagination  in  various  forms  of  literature,  as  history, 
criticism ;  in  the  acquisition  of  all  our  knowledge. 
The  scientific  imagination.  Relation  between  imagi- 
nation and  emotion 117 


CHAPTER   FIFTH 

The  Intellectual  Element  in  Literature 

In  some  varieties  of  literature  this  element  the  object 
of  the  work,  p.<j.  history,  criticism.  Such  literature, 
measured  by  the  amount,  accuracy,  clearness  of  the 
truth  it  contains.  Truth  no  less  important  in  pure 
literature,  e.g.  poetry,  fiction.  Distinction  between 
truth  and  fact.  Truths  not  new.  But  must  be  cor- 
rect. All  great  literature  based  on  truth.  How  far 
art  is  bound  to  be  faithful  to  fact.  Art  cannot  be 
an  exact  transcript ;  represents,  not  reproduces. 
Must  therefore  select  among  the  facts  of  life.  May 
idealize  them.  May  select  unusual  or  romantic  facts. 
All  great  art  combines  the  ideal  and  real.  The  term 
rralism  used  in  two  senses  :  contrasted  with  idealism 
and  with  romanticism.  Value  and  limits  in  both 
senses.     Summary 146 


CHAPTER   SIXTH 

The  Formal  Elbxkkt  in  Literature 

Form  defined  in  its  widest  sense.     Determined  in  any 

□   case   by  a  great   variety  of  considerations. 

Cannot   be  considered  apart  From  substance.    YtA 

the  two  are  not  always  commensurate,  the  writer's 


CONTENTS 


FAGE 


thought  and  feeling  being  often  in  excess  of  his 
power  to  convey  them.  Perfection  of  form  consists 
in  fidelity  to  substance.  Its  two  virtues,  energy  and 
delicacy.  One  of  these  may  be  found  without  the 
other  —  Macaulay,  Pater.  How  far  excellence  of 
form  implies  excellence  of  substance.  Ease  ano 
naturalness.  Sincerity.  Form  in  narrower  sense 
of  plan,  as  distinguished  from  detail.  Its  one  vir- 
tue, unity.  This,  however,  implies  completeness, 
method,  harmony.  Style  in  narrow  sense  of  de- 
tailed treatment.  Energy  and  delicacy.  Difficulty 
of  securing  even  clearness.  Other  qualities  of  style 
relative;  depending  upon,  1.  The  nature  of  the 
theme.     2.  The  personality  of  the  writer  .        .     182 


CHAPTER   SEVENTH 

Poetry 

Difficulty  of  defining  the  term.  Definitions  quoted 
from  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Emerson,  Brown- 
ing, Arnold,  Stedman.  Defined  as  a  variety  of  the 
literature  of  emotion  in  metrical  form.  Must  be  at 
every  point  the  language  of  emotion.  This  necessi- 
tates metre,  and  differentiates  poetry  from  other 
writing  in  structure  and  diction.  Mistakes  of 
Wordsworth  with  reference  to  the  language  of 
poetry.  The  poetic  gift  largely  a  matter  of  expres- 
sion. Poetry  therefore  not  translatable.  Its  rela 
tion  to  the  deepest  life  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
age.  Metrical  form  ;  four  elements :  1.  Quantity  ; 
the  basis  of  metre  ;  various  measures.  2.  Accent, 
metrical,  verbal,  logical  ;  phrasing.  3.  Pitch  ;  mel- 
ody. 4.  Quality  ;  rhyme  and  blank  verse  ;  allitera- 
tion ;  assonance  ;  tone-color.  Varieties  of  poetry,  — 
epic,  lyric,  dramatic 226 


CONTENTS  li 

CHAPTER  EIGHTH 

Prose  Fiction 

pao« 
Popularity  of  the  novel.  The  novel  to  be  measured  by 
its  theme  and  by  the  treatment  of  the  theme.  1.  The 
theme.  Value  of  the  element  of  plot.  The  motive 
of  youthful  love  between  the  sexes.  Its  universal 
interest.  Inadequate  to  the  highest  emotional  effects, 
because  of  the  immaturity  of  the  persons.  There- 
fore often  made  a  subordinate  motive.  Or,  if  exhib- 
ited in  mature  persons,  made  irregular,  in  conflict 
with  some  higher  law.  Artistic  dangers  in  this 
treatment  of  the  motive.  Passion  not  to  be  exhib- 
ited merely  for  its  own  sake,  but  in  its  relations  to 
life.  Unhealthy  pessimism  of  much  modern  fiction. 
Not  all  life  lit  subject  fur  art.  2.  Treatment.  Best 
when  most  dramatic.  Keeps  the  persons  in  the 
foreground.  Does  not  burden  the  story  with  much 
analysis  or  interpretation,  or  with  mere  scenery. 
Yet  the  novel  must  have  not  only  directness  and 
swiftness,  but  breadth  and  verisimilitude.  The 
growth  of  the  short  story 283 


CHAPTER   NINTH 

SlMMARY 

The  preceding  chapters  do  not  pretend  to  cover  the 
entire  field  of  criticism.  Nor  to  lay  down  a  definite 
critical  method.  Bat  assume  thai  all  real  criticism 
must  1"'  BOmething  more  than  individual  impression. 
And  aim  to  set  forth  some  principles  that  must  always 
underlie  such  criticism 311 


xii  CONTENTS 

APPENDIX 

PAGE 

Illustrative  References 317 

INDEX 347 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY 
CRITICISM 


SOME   PRINCIPLES 


LITERARY   CRITICISM 

CHAPTER  FIRST 
Definitions  and  Limitations 

Criticism  may  be  broadly  and  provisionally 
defined  as  the  intelligent  appreciation  of  any  work 
of  art,  and  by  consequence  the  just  estimate  of  its 
value  and  rank.  Literary  criticism  is,  of  course, 
concerned  only  with  literature ;  but  the  general 
nature  of  the  functions  of  criticism  is  much  the 
same  whether  the  object  criticised  be  literature, 
or  painting,  or  sculpture,  or  music. 

Taste  is  a  word  frequently  occurring  in  criti- 
cal discussion.  Taste,  in  such  discussion,  means 
simply  the  power  to  appreciate  any  work  of  art. 
It  is  not  a  single  faculty,  but  must  imply  the 
joint  action  of  intellect  and  emotions.  The  word 
appreciation,  as  used  in  the  above  definition, 
may  include  the  exercise  of  all  powers  which 
combine  to  receive  the  full  effect  of  a  work  of 
art.     This    definition    may    also    indicate   that    the 

B  1 


1/ 


2  PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

first  duty  of  criticism  is  to  appreciate,  not  to  esti- 
mate ;  that  any  attempt  to  estimate  or  rank  a  work 
of  art  is  only  a  secondary  and  less  important  func- 
tion of  criticism.  The  effort  to  grade  authors  in 
an  ascending  scale  of  merit,  or  to  apply  any  com- 
parative standard  of  excellence,  is  never  very  suc- 
cessful and  never  very  wise.  There  are  always 
such  essential  differences  between  great  writers 
that  it  is  idle  to  attempt  to  determine  their  com- 
parative value.  If  anybody  asks,  which  was  the 
greater  poet,  Spenser  or  Milton,  Shelley  or  Words- 
worth, the  proper  answer  is,  Both.  That  is,  each 
excels  the  other  in  some  qualities,  while  there  is 
not  enough  fundamental  similarity  in  their  work 
to  afford  proper  basis  of  comparison.  Every  man 
can  tell  which  he  likes  the  better  —  which  is  quite 
another  matter.  But  criticism  can  point  out  what 
qualities  essential  to  greatness  in  literature  each 
possessed,  and  can  thus  enable  us  to  appreciate 
both  the  better. 

The  study  of  literary  criticism,  as  thus  broadly 
defined,  might  embrace  not  only  all  general  prin- 
ciples by  which  we  should  judge  a  work  of  litera- 
ture and  all  practical  rules  for  applying  these 
principles,  but  all  collateral  matters  necessary  to 
the  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  work,  and 
even  any  processes  that  would  quicken  and  enlarge 
our  powers  of  appreciation.  But  for  our  discussion 
the  subject  must  be  much  more  narrowly  defined. 

The  limitations  imposed  upon  it  in  the  following 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  3 

pages  may  perhaps  best  be  indicated  by  noticing 
that  there  are  three  methods  of  approach  to  the 
study  of  any  work  of  literature,  and  that  literary 
criticism,  as  discussed  in  this  book,  is  concerned  only 
with  the  third. 

1.  The  Historical. — Every  national  literature  is 
an  expression  of  the  changing  life  of  the  nation 
that  has  produced  it.  For  literature  is  one  side 
of  history;  often,  indeed,  the  most  instructive  side. 
It  is  a  commonplace  to  say  that  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  history  of  any  period  involves  a  famili- 
arity with  the  literature  of  that  period.  How  can 
you  understand  the  Elizabethan  age,  the  spirit  that 
underlay  all  its  external  life,  inspired  all  its  splen- 
did achievements  and  made  that  history,  unless 
you  are  familiar  with  Elizabethan  literature  ?  Or, 
to  take  perhaps  a  still  better  example,  how  can 
you  appreciate  the  temper  of  the  Queen  Anne  time, 
its  ideals  in  politics,  manners,  morals,  —  how  is  it 
possible  to  be  at  home  in  that  age  at  all,  unless 
you  are  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  Addison  and 
Steele  and  Swift?  And  the  converse  of  course  is 
equally  true.  Any  adequate  criticism  of  a  litera- 
ture, or,  as  a  rule,  of  any  single  work  of  literature, 
always  necessitates  a  knowledge  of  the  history  of 
the  age  in  which  that  literal  lire  was  produced.  This 
is  obviously  true  of  all  that  body  of  literature  which 
grows  directly  out  of  contemporary  history,  such 
as  political  discussion,  oratory,  satire.  And  some 
Of  the  noblest  writing  IS  of  this  kind.     It  would  be 


4  PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

a  most  serious  loss  to  cut  out  of  English  literature 
Dryden,   and   Butler,    and    Pope,   and   Swift,  and 
Burke,  and  Carlyle.     Yet  most  of  the  work  of  all 
these  men,  and  of  scores  of  others  only  little  less 
eminent,  was  called  out  by  current  political  events, 
and  is  hardly  to   be  read   intelligently  without   a 
knowledge  of  those  events.     And  even  more  impor- 
tant  is  it   to  study  from   the   historical   point   of 
view  those  books  which  mirror  the  spirit  of  an  age 
without  being  so  closely  dependent  upon  its  par- 
ticular  events.     Take   Spenser's  Faery  Queen   for 
example.     It  is  only  a  long,  bright  phantasmagoria, 
devoid   of   any  higher  moral   charm,  until  we  re- 
member in  what  years  it  was  a-writing  and  what 
deeds  were  a-doing  then  all  over   Europe.     It   is 
only  when  we  can  see  that  great  struggle  between 
an  old  faith  and  a  new,  that   tremendous  wrestle 
for  the  mastery  of   a  new  world,  all   mirrored  in 
the  poem,  that  we  appreciate   its  highest   literary 
charm.     Similarly,  we  are  constantly  liable  to  mis- 
judge individual  authors  in  the  most  unfortunate 
way  unless  we  consider  their  relation  to  their  age, 
the  opinions  moral  and  political  that  were  current 
then,  the  standards  of  judgment  that  prevailed,  the 
sentiments   of   the   age  with  which   they  were   in 
accord,   or   against  which,   perhaps,   they  were  in 
passionate   revolt.     Shelley,   for  instance,  is  quite 
unintelligible   without   an  intimate   knowledge   of 
his  political  and  historical  surroundings.     It  is  not 
merely  that  we  cannot  understand  the   import  of 


DEFINITIONS    AND   LIMITATIONS  5 

particular  passages  or  poems;  we  cannot  understand 
the  habitual  temper  of  the  poet,  or  know  how  to 
make  allowances.  Much  of  his  work,  as  well  as 
many  events  of  his  life,  if  regarded  apart  from 
his  age  in  the  light  of  general  principles,  might 
seem  almost  monstrous. 

Consider  also  that  the  general  spirit  of  an  age 
determines  very  largely  not  only  the  opinions  and 
temper  of  a  literature,  but  even  its  form.  And 
here  it  is  not  meant  merely  that  one  age  specially 
patronizes  one  great  variety  of  literature  above  all 
others,  as,  for  example,  the  Elizabethan  age  devel- 
oped  the  drama  and  our  age  encourages  the  novel. 
That,  indeed,  is  a  very  important  fact,  and  much 
depends  upon  it.  Suppose  William  Shakspere  had 
been  born  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  later, 
would  he  have  been  the  greatest  master  in  Eng- 
lish literature?  It  seems  extremely  doubtful.  His 
genius  was  preeminently  dramatic;  but  he  could 
hardly  have  won  great  renown  us  a  dramatist  in 
the  condition  of  the  drama  during  the  age  of  Queen 
Anne.  And  it  is  altogether  improbable  that  his 
genius,  if  diverted  into  any  other  form  of  expres- 
sion, would  have  proved  so  wonderful.  Or  take  an 
opposite  <ase.  Suppose  Alexander  Pope  had  been 
born  in  Shakspi  ■ '.'    How  could  a  man  with  80 

little  imagination,  largeness  of  mind  or  aggressive 
Faroe  of  character,  have  gained  lasting  distinction 
in  letters  then?  His  acuteness  and  point,  his 
delioate  sense  of   phrase,  his  keenness  of  satiric 


6         PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

vision,  all  his  most  characteristic  gifts  would  then 
have  found  no  field  for  exercise,  or  would  have 
been  wasted  in  petty  euphuism.  It  is  evident  that 
some  historic  conditions  are  favorable  to  one  type 
of  genius  and  not  to  another,  and  that  the  type 
survives  in  permanent  literary  form  which  is  best 
fitted  to  its  environment.  But  by  the  influence 
of  an  age  upon  literary  form,  is  here  meant  more 
especially  that  subtler  influence  which  demands 
neatness,  method,  point,  in  one  age,  and  luxuri- 
ance, profusion,  imagination,  in  another.  It  is 
undeniable  that  the  standard  of  literary  form  in  the 
age  of  Anne,  for  instance,  was  very  different  from 
what  it  has  been  in  the  past  fifty  years.  Compare 
Pope  with  Tennyson.  Both  were  exquisite  artists ; 
the  work  of  both  is  characterized  by  perfect  finish ; 
both  were  dissatisfied  until  they  had  given  what- 
ever they  wrote  the  last  perfecting  touch.  Yet 
how  different  their  notions  of  artistic  form.  Such 
differences  of  standard  are  unquestionably  due  in 
large  degree  to  differences  in  social  and  political 
condition,  —  due,  that  is,  to  influences  which  it  is 
the  work  of  the  historian  to  consider.  Historical 
criticism  sees  that  in  any  given  age  certain  virtues 
are  greatly  admired,  certain  faults  hardly  per- 
ceived; that  as  a  result  standards  for  the  man 
of  letters  change  more  or  less,  and  the  estimate 
even  of  the  great  classics  varies  from  age  to  age. 
And  these  variations  historical  criticism  tries  to 
account    for,   by    showing    their    relation    to    con- 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  7 

comitant  changes  in  national  character  and  con- 
ditions. 

Furthermore  it  is  matter  of  familiar  observation 
that  the  character  of  literature  is  decided  by  the 
race  that  produces  it,  and  that  the  same  great  his- 
toric movement  may  have  very  different  effects  upon 
different  races.  French  literature  is  very  unlike 
English  literature  in  its  ethical  standards,  its  dom- 
inant emotions,  its  ideals  of  literary  form.  And 
these  differences  are  largely  owing  to  causes  that 
the  historical  student  can  investigate.  For  in- 
stance, that  sum  of  influences  which  we  call  the 
Renaissance  resulted  very  differently  in  the  litera- 
tures of  France  and  of  England.  It  seemed  to  pro- 
duce a  classic  literature  in  one  country  and  a  ro- 
mantic in  the  other.  But  why  ?  Only  the  historical 
critic  can  tell  us.  It  is  not  easy,  doubtless,  for 
A  im  to  tell  us  always ;  but  any  attempt  to  answer 
such  a  question  without  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
historic  conditions  would  be  folly.  He  who  can 
tell  us  why  England  Lad  a  Shakspere  and  France 
a  Racine  has  read  deeply  into  the  influence  of 
historic  conditions  upon  national  life. 

Now  from  all  these  considerations  it  is  evident 
thai  tlie  historical  met  hod  of  approach  to  the  study 
of  literature  is  fruitful  of  the  richest  results,  and, 
indeed,  that  the  appreciation  of  literature  whieh 
we  have  called  criticism  is  nut  in  the  fullest  sense 
ible  without  this  historic  method.  Moreover, 
Of    kite    years    certain    scientific     tendencies    have 


8         PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

given  a  new  impetus  to  this  form  of  criticism. 
Convinced  that  the  principle  of  evolution  is  opera- 
tive in  literature  as  well  as  in  all  other  social 
phenomena,  that  literary  product  whether  of  the 
individual  or  of  the  nation  is  the  resultant  of  those 
forces  of  inheritance  and  environment  which  give 
continuity  to  the  life  of  society,  the  critic  has  been 
inclined  to  give  too  much  rather  than  too  little 
weight  to  the  historical  connections  and  antece- 
dents of  the  work  he  studies.  He  has  often  under- 
valued that  element  of  individuality  in  literature 
which  cannot  be  analyzed  or  accounted  for.  Fur- 
thermore, it  is  to  be  noted  that  this  method  of 
study  leads  rather  to  an  explanation  than  to  an 
appreciation  of  any  work  of  art.  It  sets  the  object 
of  study  in  its  due  relations  with  other  phenomena 
and  brings  it  under  the  sweep  of  law,  but  it  does 
not  always  help  us  to  a  direct  perception  of  essen- 
tial artistic  qualities.  Its  results,  in  fact,  are  his- 
torical and  scientific  rather  than  critical.  Literary 
criticism,  then,  in  the  narrow  sense  in  which  the 
term  is  used  throughout  the  following  chapters,  is 
concerned  with  other  than  historical  facts  and  re- 
lations; though  in  the  endeavor  to  find  and  apply 
its  principles  it  certainly  needs  a  wide  comparative 
study  of  examples. 

2.  The  second  mode  of  approach  to  any  literary 
subject  is  the  Biographical  or  Personal.  A  work  of 
literature  may  be  regarded  not  as  illustrating  the 
history  or  spirit  of  the  time  in  which  it  was  writ- 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  9 

ten,  but,  more  specifically,  as  a  revelation  of  the 
personality  of  its  author.  Thus  regarded,  litera- 
ture becomes  the  handmaid  not,  as  just  now,  of 
history,  but  of  biography.  It  is  urged,  therefore, 
that  if  we  are  endeavoring  to  appreciate  thor- 
oughly a  book,  a  poem,  we  must  first  acquaint 
ourselves  as  far  as  we  can  with  the  life  of  its 
author.  His  book,  it  is  said,  comes  out  of  his 
experience,  and  the  more  of  that  experience  we 
can  learn  from  any  other  source,  the  better  we  can 
understand  his  point  of  view,  so  much  the  better 
shall  we  appreciate  his  book.  And  to  a  certain 
extent  this  is  obviously  true.  The  value  of  bio- 
graphical knowledge  as  a  requisite  to  literary 
appreciation  may,  however,  easily  be  exaggerated. 
It  is  natural  to  desire  to  know  something  of  the 
life  of  any  man  whose  book  has  interested  us;  but 
we  are  not  to  give  undue  weight  to  any  personal 
considerations  in  our  estimate  of  the  book,  nor 
allow  our  judgment  to  be  biassed  by  our  approval 
or  disapproval  of  some  other  things  the  author  has 
or  has  not  done.  It  is  notorious  that  contemporary 
criticism  has  often  been  determined  largely  by 
personal  prejudice  against  the  author.  Much  of  the 
criticism,  for  example,  upon  Wordsworth.  Coleridge, 
and  Keats,  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  was 
obviously  inspired  not  by  any  discriminating  opin- 
ion of  their  poetry,  but  by  an  obstinate  prejudice, 

political  or  social,  against  the  men  thcmsr Ives. 
And  our  judgment  of  the  work  of  authors  who  have 


10       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

been  dead  a  hundred  years  is  sometimes  unduly 
influenced  by  our  estimate  of  their  political  or 
social  or  religious  opinions.  In  one  of  his  last 
essays,  Matthew  Arnold  deplored  the  appearance 
of  Dowden's  Life  of  Shelley,  on  the  ground  that 
it  gave  needless  prominence  to  certain  events  and 
associations  in  the  life  of  Shelley  which  tend  to 
lessen  our  just  appreciation  and  enjoyment  of  his 
work.1  Mr.  Saintsbury  may  be  cited  as  another 
critic  who  often  —  and  I  think  sometimes  too  im- 
patiently —  protests  against  the  introduction  of 
much  biographical  matter  into  critical  estimates. 
Speaking  of  Shakspere's  sonnets,  he  says :  — 

"  For  my  part  I  am  unable  to  find  the  slightest 
interest  or  the  most  rudimentary  importance  in  the 
questions  whether  the  Mr.  W.  H.  of  the  dedication 
was  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  if  so,  whether  he 
was  also  the  object  of  the  majority  of  the  Sonnets; 
whether  the  '  dark  lady,'  the  '  woman  coloured  ill,' 
was  Miss  Mary  Fitton ;  whether  the  rival  poet  was 
Chapman.  Very  likely  all  these  things  are  true : 
very  likely  not  one  of  them  is  true.  They  are  im- 
possible of  settlement,  and  if  they  were  settled  they 
would  not  in  the  slightest  degree  affect  the  poetical 
beauty  and  the  human  interest  of  the  Sonnets." 2 

We  may  not  go  so  far  with  Mr.  Saintsbury,  in 
this  case,  as  to  agree  that  certain  knowledge  on  all 

1  "  Critical  Essays,"  Second  Series,  Shelley,  pp.  206-207,  237- 
238. 

2  "  History  of  Elizabethan  Literature,"  p.  162. 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  U 

the  biography  connected  with  the  sonnets  would  not 
affect  in  the  slightest  degree  their  "human  inter- 
est"; but  it  is  unquestionable  that  too  much  or  too 
intrusive  knowledge,  with  reference  to  the  mere 
externals  of  a  man's  life,  may  withdraw  our  atten- 
tion from  the  essential  qualities  of  his  work.  The 
author  has  the  right,  at  all  events,  to  be  judged  by 
his  book;  that  is  what  he  has  given  us.  He  says: 
"  This  I  have  done  for  the  public  ;  judge  this.  I 
did  not  pretend  to  oiler  my  life  for  your  criticism, 
but  only  such  parts  of  it  as  I  have  put  into  my 
book."  And  it  will  always  be  found  more  just,  as 
well  as  more  generous,  to  judge  a  man's  life  by  his 
book  than  to  judge  his  book  by  his  life. 

Yet  we  may  still  admit  that  a  certain  amount  of 
biographical  study  and  interest  is  often  essential 
to  the  most  thorough  appreciation  of  any  work  of 
literature.  For  the  charm  of  all  literature  resides 
Largely  in  the  personality  of  the  author  —  that  in- 
definable quality,  or  rather  combination  and  balance 
of  qualities,  by  virtue  of  which  he  was  himself,  dif- 
ferent from  every  other  human  being.  Any  good 
book  will  make  you  feel  that,  somehow.  And  it  is 
certainly  cea  onable  that  we  should  seek  to  deepen 
our   sense   of   this   individuality  of   the   author  by 

acquainting  ourselves  with  the  deciding  facts  of  his 

life.      Frequently,  also,   the  critical    disapproval   of 

certain  qualities  of  an  author's  hook  may  justify 
itself  most  conclusively  by  reference  to  the  tacts 

of  hib  life.      For  instance,  our  feeling  of  the   false 


12       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

note  in  all  Sterne's  sentiment,  its  ungenuineness 
and  sentimentality,  is  confirmed  when  we  discover 
what  a  tissue  of  pious  and  whimpering  frauds  his 
life  itself  was.  Or,  as  we  read  much  of  Byron's 
poetry,  we  should  decide,  I  think,  if  we  knew  noth- 
ing of  his  life,  that  much  of  the  verse  has  a  hollow 
ring,  that  genuine  passion  and  sorrow  do  not  speak 
so ;  and  our  critical  judgment  is  verified  when  we 
know  the  man,  and  see  him  posturing  constantly, 
in  every  relation,  for  twenty  years.  More  gener- 
ally, it  would  seem  idle  to  deny  that  biographical 
knowledge  often  helps  us  to  reach  the  same  point 
of  view  the  author  had  when  he  wrote,  and  so  to 
be  in  sympathy  with  him.  A  great  writer,  what- 
ever be  the  source  of  his  greatness,  certainly  takes 
some  larger,  more  impressive  views  of  life ;  he  is 
deeply  affected  by  some  phases  of  human  experi- 
ence. That  is,  at  all  events,  a  part  of  his  great- 
ness. And  we  shall  understand  his  work  better 
if  we  can  put  ourselves,  to  some  degree,  in  his 
place.  Walter  Scott  was  a  man  who  was  never 
his  own  hero,  never  worked  up  his  own  history 
into  literary  shape,  never  had  anything  to  say  of 
his  own  feeling  or  circumstances, — no  writer  is 
more  thoroughly  objective,  —  yet  can  any  one  deny 
that  we  enter  more  thoroughly  into  the  spirit,  both 
of  his  poetry  and  his  fiction,  after  we  have  become 
familiar  with  his  life  ?  And  if  this  is  so  with  such 
an  author  as  Scott,  how  much  more  true  is  it  of 
such  an  author,  let  us  say,  as  Samuel  Johnson  or 


DEFINITIONS    AND    LIMITATIONS  13 

Charles  Lamb.  The  work  of  a  man  like  Lamb  is 
in  fact  all  autobiography,  and  nothing  else.  He  is 
telling  you  himself  —  his  humor,  his  pathos,  his 
foibles;  his  own  personality  is  the  whole  subject  of 
his  work.  Thus  our  appreciation  of  him  is  doubled 
when  we  come  to  be  familiarly  acquainted  with 
the  facts  of  his  life.  Such  writers,  and  they  are 
often  the  most  charming  if  not  the  greatest,  we 
can  never  fully  enjoy  until  we  have  put  ourselves 
on  terms  of  personal  intimacy  with  them. 

One  legitimate  mode  of  approach  to  literary  study, 
then,  is  from  the  side  of  the  author's  personality. 
Yet  this  method,  like  the  historical,  is  excluded  by 
the  restrictions  placed  upon  the  meaning  of  the 
term  Literary  Criticism  in  this  volume. 

3.  There  is  a  third  method  of  study  applied  to 
any  work  of  literature,  which  we  may  call  more  spe- 
cifically the  Critical  or  Literary.  We  may  ask,  What 
is  the  value  and  interest  of  this  work  in  itself,  as 
a  piece  of  literature,  quite  apart  from  its  connec- 
tions with  its  age  <»r  its  author'.'  Wherein  consists 
its  power  or  charm  ?     Why  does  it  refuse  to  die? 

Now  questions  of  this  kind,  it  will  be  seen,  are 
for  the  most  part  unconnected  with  all  biographical 
or  historical  relations  and  interests.     We  may  ask 

them   intelligently  and  in  many  cases  answer  them 

intelligently  without  knowing  much  about  the  age, 

ami  without  knowing  anything  about  the  author. 
Indeed,  some  of  the  greatest  specimens  of  literature 
are   hooks   with   reference   to   which  we  cannot    ask 


14       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

any  other  questions  than  these,  because  we  know 
little  of  the  period  in  which  they  were  written  and 
nothing  ".*  the  men  who  wrote  them.  Homer,  for 
instance.  Homer's  work,  to  be  sure,  may  be  studied 
with  a  view  to  get  history  out  of  it ;  but  we  have 
not  much  historic  information  to  throw  upon  the 
poems  themselves.  Nor  do  we  need  it.  They 
derive  their  interest  mainly  from  universal  con- 
siderations which  are  true  and  powerful  in  all  ages. 
And  much  as  we  may  wish  to  know  the  life  of 
Shakspere,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  we  really 
need  to  know  much  about  it.  Nor  are  we  greatly 
helped  to  a  comprehension  of  his  work  by  a  study 
of  his  age.  It  is  true,  as  remarked  in  a  former 
page,  that  Shakspere  was  dependent  upon  the 
habits  and  social  customs  of  his  time  for  those  con- 
ditions most  favorable  to  the  exercise  of  his  dra- 
matic genius,  and  it  is  further  true,  doubtless,  that 
he  does  in  many  respects  exhibit  the  urgent,  imagi- 
native spirit  of  his  age ;  but  what  is  here  insisted 
on  is  that  the  qualities  by  virtue  of  which  he  holds 
his  preeminence  are  qualities  not  dependent  on 
any  age  or  circumstance.  As  Ben  Jonson  well 
said,  "He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time." 
Something  like  this,  in  fact,  is  true  of  all  great 
classics.  They  are  not  provincial  in  place  or  time. 
They  are  not  dependent  upon  knowledge  of  the  age 
or  the  author  for  appreciation.  They  may  have 
been  —  in  the  deepest  sense  they  were  —  inspired 
by  their  age;   yet   they  are  also  in  a  sense  inde- 


DEFINITIONS    AND    LIMITATIONS  Ifi 

pendent  of  it,  and  deal  with  those  larger  human 
ideas  and  relations  that  no  time  can  antiquate. 
Homer,  Dante,  Shakspere,  and  to  much  }nis  degree 
.Milton,  seem  of  no  age,  but  of  all  ages. 

Now  it  is  when  we  approach  a  work  of  literature 
from  this  side,  with  a  view  to  determine  its  essential 
qualities  and  value  apart  from  all  its  particular  ex- 
ternal relations,  that  we  find  the  field  of  Literary 
Criticism  in  the  narrower,  more  precise  sense  in 
which  it  is  here  to  be  studied.  We  may  say,  then, 
that  it  is  the  function  of  Literary  Criticism  to  de- 
termine the  essential  or  intrinsic  virtues  of  litera- 
ture, and  to  discuss  these  virtues  as  they  appear  in 
various  kinds  of  literature.  As  thus  defined  it  in- 
cludes all  attempts  to  discover  what  are  the  quali- 
ties that  constitute  literature,  whether  qualities  of 
matter,  —  as  imagination,  emotion,  or  qualities  of 
manner,  —  as  melody  and  all  virtues  of  form.  It 
covers  all  discussion  of  the  relation  of  these  quali- 
ties to  each  other,  their  relative  importance,  the 
ways  in  which  they  combine  to  produce  literary 
effect.  Criticism,  thus  conceived,  is  a  science 
(though  doubtless  a  very  imperfect  one),  rather  than 
an  art;  that  is,  it  seeks  to  discover  and  state  general 

principles  rather  than  to  give  rules  Eor  their  appli- 
cation iii  special  eases.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that 
the  latter  meaning  is  the  one  most  commonly  sug- 
gested by  the  use  of  the  word.  The  critic  is  thought 
of  as  one  who  judges  in  particular  eas.'s.  I'.ut  it 
would  seem  necessary  that  there  must  first  be  some 


16       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

accepted  principles  upon  which  such  judgment  can 
be  based.  "The  function  of  criticism/'  says 
Matthew  Arnold,  using  the  term  criticism  rather 
widely,  is  "  to  learn  and  propagate  the  best  that  is 
known  and  thought  in  the  world."  Yes,  that  is  the 
ultimate  function  of  criticism ;  but  how  are  we  to 
know  what  is  best?  Criticism  may  do  well  to 
point  out  first,  if  possible,  some  qualities  to  serve  as 
tests  or  standards  by  which  we  may  know  the  best. 
Criticism,  as  here  defined,  might  be  regarded  as 
a  higher  kind  of  Rhetoric.  It  differs  from  Rhetoric, 
however,  chiefly  in  two  respects.  1.  Rhetoric  is 
more  exclusively  an  art.  It  aims  to  teach  us  how 
to  do  something,  i.e.  to  write.  Criticism,  suppos- 
ing the  thing  done,  teaches  us  the  principles 
by  which  we  may  appreciate  and  estimate  it. 
2.  Rhetoric  has  to  do,  as  is  implied  in  the  preceding 
statement,  chiefly  with  form.  Presupposing  that  a 
man  has  something  to  say,  but  not  attempting  to 
judge  whether  it  is  worth  saying  or  not,  Rhetoric 
teaches  him  how  to  say  it.  Criticism  deals  pri- 
marily with  the  matter,  with  what  a  man  has  to  say, 
and  the  effect  it  is  fitted  to  produce  on  the  reader ; 
and  though  it  also  discusses  form  or  style,  it  con- 
siders that  in  a  somewhat  larger  way  than  rhetoric 
does.  It  deals  not  so  much  with  the  structure  of  the 
sentence  and  paragraph  or  with  any  of  the  mechanics 
of  style  as  with  those  more  intangible  though  valu- 
able qualities  of  style  that  arise  from  a  subtle  adap- 
tation of  expression  to  thought  and  emotion,  and 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  17 

those  beauties  that  hardly  submit  themselves  to  the 
coarser  analysis  of  rhetorical  rule.  The  range  of 
criticism  is  therefore  wider  than  that  of  Rhetoric ; 
but  its  principles  are  likely  to  be  more  vague  than 
the  rules  of  Rhetoric. 

Literary  Criticism  has  been  defined  in  the  pre- 
ceding paragraphs  as  a  science  (though  an  imper- 
fect one),  because  it  seeks  to  discover  certain 
qualities,  common  to  all  good  literature,  which  may 
serve  as  tests  and  standards  —  in  a  word,  a  body  of 
principles.  But  it  is  often  objected  that  just  this 
is  impossible,  and  consequently  that  there  is,  and 
can  be,  no  such  thing  as  a  science  of  criticism. 
This  denial  is  based  on  several  grounds,  which  we 
must  briefly  examine. 

1.  It  is  sometimes  urged  —  though  the  objection 
is  perhaps  hardly  of  sufficient  weight  to  deserve 
mention  —  that  there  is  no  rational  appeal  from 
individual  taste,  and  hence  no  standard  of  judg- 
ment. If  there  be  many  different  opinions  on  any 
work  of  art,  there  is  no  reason,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  for  giving  any  one  of  them  authority  over  the 
rest.  In  matters  of  fact  there  is  an  outward 
standard.  If  statements  correspond  to  facts,  they 
are  "  true  " ;  if  not,  they  are  "  false."  But  in  matters 
of  taste  their  cannot  be  any  such  outward  standard. 
If  a  thing  pleases  me,  it  does,  —  and  there  an  end: 
it  is  not  therefore  tine  or  false,  correct  or  incorrect, 
great  or  small.     A  work  of  literature  is  designed 


18       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

to  please  the  reader :  if  it  does  please  him,  he  will 
pronounce  it  excellent ;  if  it  pleases  many,  why, 
many  will  pronounce  it  excellent,  and  it  will  be 
popular.  But  there  is  no  question  of  higher  or 
lower  involved,  and  all  such  verdicts  in  literature 
are  arbitrary  and  irrational. 

As  to  this  objection,  we  need  only  say  that 
it  contradicts  the  general  experience  of  mankind. 
There  is  a  general  tacit  recognition  of  such  a  dis- 
tinction as  higher  and  lower  in  literature,  and  that 
where  no  moral  interests  are  involved ;  and  this 
distinction  must  imply  some  objective  standard, 
however  vague  that  standard  may  be  and  however 
difficult  to  define.  The  proverb  de  gustibus  non 
disputandum  only  means  that  it  is  useless  to  argue 
with  an  individual  on  the  decisions  of  his  personal 
taste.  If  a  man  say  that  he  likes  The  Sweet  By 
and  By  better  than  he  likes  Beethoven's  Ninth  Sym- 
phony, it  is  of  no  use  to  argue  with  him  about  it. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  there  is  no  intelligible 
sense  in  which  Beethoven's  Symphony  is  better 
than  TJie  Sweet  By  and  By.  And  if  this  man 
should  be  able  to  cite  a  hundred  other  men  who 
honestly  prefer  the  song  to  one  who  prefers  the 
symphony,  as  he  probably  could,  it  would  still 
be  intelligible  to  say  that  the  hundred  preferred 
the  lower  thing,  and  the  one  the  higher.  Why 
that  would  be  an  intelligible  and  correct  thing  to 
say,  we  need  not  now  decide  —  that  question  must 
be  considered  later ;  all  it  is  necessary  to  note  here 


DEFINITIONS    AND   LIMITATIONS  19 

is,  that  by  the  general  consent  of  men  there  is  in 
matters  of  taste  a  higher  and  a  lower,  and  that  the 
difference  between  them  is  not  determined  by  a 
majority  vote.  On  such  matters  numbers  do  not 
count. 

2.  A  more  serious  objection  is  found  in  the  vari- 
ations of  taste  among  competent  judges.  The  best 
critical  verdicts  of  one  race  differ  widely  from  those 
of  another.  Standards  of  taste  within  the  same 
nation  change  greatly  from  age  to  age.  More  than 
this,  within  the  same  nation  and  at  the  same  time, 
different  critics  equally  well  qualified,  differ  in  their 
judgment  radically.  Mr.  Arnold  hardly  will  ad- 
mit that  Pope's  work  is  poetry  at  all ;  Mr.  Court- 
hope  declares  it  is  poetry  of  the  strictest,  most 
classic  variety.  One  man  admires  the  clear,  ani- 
mated, positive  style  of  Macaulay;  another  man 
says  it  is  hard,  metallic,  virtually  untruthful,  — 
the  worst  kind  of  style.  Dr.  Johnson  not  only 
said  of  the  songs  in  Comus  that  they  are  intol- 
erably harsh,  —  that  might  have  been  accounted 
for  by  his  almost  incredible  deafness  to  melody  in 
verse,  —  but  he  said  of  all  Milton's  minor  poems, 
which  he  calls  "  trifles,"  that  "  if  they  differ  from 
Others  they  differ  for  the  worse";  that  in  Li/cidas 
"  there  is  no  nature,  for  there  is  no  truth ;  there  is 
DO  art,  tor  there  is  nothing  new";  that  "one  god 
asks  another  god  what  has  become  of  Lycidas,  and 
neither  god  can  tell  ";  that  it  is  all  -easy,  vulgar, 
and  therefore  disgusting."     And   Johnson,  though 


20       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

he  took  care,  perhaps,  that  the  "  Whig  dogs  "  like 
Milton  shouldn't  "  get  the  best  of  it,"  was  on  the 
whole  a  very  creditably  honest  critic,  telling  what 
he  genuinely  thought,  at  first  hand,  for  himself. 
And  he  was  never  a  fool.  Addison,  who  admired 
Milton  well,  if  not  very  wisely,  could  say  of  the 
work  of  Milton's  great  predecessor,  Spenser  :  — 

"  But  now  the  mystic  tale  that  pleas'd  of  yore 
Can  charm  our  understanding  age  no  more." 

And  although  this  was  a  youthful  verdict,  there 
is  no  indication  that  Addison  ever  reversed  it. 
The  varying  judgment  on  Shakspere  since  his  death 
is  matter  of  common  knowledge.  Such  examples 
of  radically  different  verdicts  upon  the  same  piece 
of  literature  by  qualified  critics,  it  is  urged,  could 
be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

Consider,  furthermore,  the  difference  of  opin- 
ion as  to  the  validity  of  any  particular  law  of 
structure,  or  the  propriety  of  any  given  combina- 
tion of  emotional  effects.  Take  the  question  of 
the  unities  in  the  drama  —  whether  good  taste  is 
violated  and  dramatic  effect  lost  by  supposing  the 
action  of  a  drama  to  occupy  more  than  one  day,  to 
go  on  in  more  than  one  place,  or  to  include  more 
than  one  main  event.  Whole  generations  of  critics 
will  be  found  insisting  on  all  three,  while  others 
will  praise  Shakspere's  freedom  in  caring  nothing 
at  all  about  the  first  two,  and  often  straining  the 
third  very  hard.      Or  that  other  question  as   to 


DEFINITIONS   AND    LIMITATIONS  21 

the  wisdom  of  combining  diverse  emotional  effects, 
"mixing  comic  stuff  with  tragic  sadness,"  as  Milton 
contemptuously  calls  it,  —  putting  a  clown  to  jest 
over  the  grave  of  Ophelia,  and  another  clown  to 
jest  as  he  bears  the  death-dealing  asp  to  Cleopatra, 
or  two  clowns  to  jest  at  the  heels  of  Macbeth's 
bloody  deed  —  there  has  been  much  division  of 
critic  wits  over  this.  Some  critics  have  asserted 
that  it  is  a  gross  violation  of  all  the  dictates  of 
refined  art ;  others,  that  it  is  a  most  pathetic  effect, 
sanctioned  by  those  laws  of  human  nature  which  are 
the  bases  of  art. 

With  such  a  diversity  of  taste  among  competent 
persons,  it  is  argued  that  it  is  hopeless  to  attempt 
to  lay  down  any  principles,  or  prescribe  any  quali- 
ties presupposing  agreement. 

Now  in  answer  to  this  objection,  we  may  admit 
at  once  that  this  diversity  of  taste  does  limit  the 
sphere  of  criticism  somewhat.  But  it  will  be  seen, 
on  a  moment's  reflection,  that  the  alleged  diversity 
is  not  so  wide  as  it  seems.  In  fact,  the  diversity 
of  taste  among  different  races,  ages,  individuals, 
is  much  less  than  the  agreement;  at  all  events,  the 
points  <>f  agreement,  if  not  more  numerous  than  the 
points  of  difference,  are  far  more  important.  If 
that  were  not  so,  indeed,  there  could  be  no  perma- 
nent literature.  Bui  consider  that  literature,  or  art 
in  general,  is  the  most  abiding  thing  in  the  world. 
Everything  else  js  antiquated,  and  superseded  by 
the  progress  of  civilization.      A  bright  schoolboy 


22       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

could  set  right  the  men  of  Homer's  day  on  almost 
every  department  of  objective  knowledge ;  but 
Homer  is  as  good  as  ever;  he  is  not  antiquated. 
And  notice  —  for  it  is  the  special  point  now  under 
consideration  —  that  not  only  is  the  poem  admired 
as  truly  now  as  then,  but  it  is  admired  for  the  same 
qualities.  Not,  indeed,  that  our  estimate  of  the 
poem  is  in  all  respects  identical  with  that  of  the 
men  of  three  thousand  years  ago,  but  the  great  es- 
sential grounds  of  literary  appreciation  were  the 
same  then  as  now.  What  was  poetry  to  the  men 
of  Homer's  day  continues  to  be  poetry  to  the  men 
of  our  day.  Here,  then,  is  an  essential  uniformity 
of  taste,  which  indicates  that  there  must  be  some 
critical  principles  of  universal  and  permanent 
application. 

Furthermore,  a  little  consideration  will  show  that 
many  divergences  of  taste  are  entirely  consistent 
with  deeper,  underlying  agreement.  For  instance, 
rules  of  literary  structure  are  often  handed  down 
from  age  to  age  and  accepted  by  a  conservative 
temper  long  after  the  conditions  which  produced 
them  have  altered.  The  dramatic  unities,  above 
referred  to,  illustrate  this.  They  were  good  for 
the  Greek  drama.  Presupposing  a  certain  effect 
to  be  aimed  at  in  dramatic  representation,  they 
may  have  been  helpful  in  producing  that  effect: 
but  it  does  not  follow  either  that  they  are  valid 
when  a  different  effect  is  aimed  at,  or  that  the 
effect  of  the  Greek  drama  is  the  highest  the  dra- 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  23 

matic  art  can  produce.  No  artistic  rules  can  be  ac- 
cepted as  universal  unless  the  conditions  outof  which 
they  grew  can  be  proved  necessary  and  permanent. 
Of  the  unities,  only  one,  the  unity  of  subject,  can  be 
shown  to  be  rooted  in  unchanging  laws  of  taste,  and 
only  this  one,  therefore,  is  of  universal  obligation. 

The  difference  in  the  verdicts  which  competent 
critics  pronounce  on  a  given  work  of  art  is  largely 
accounted  for  by  the  different  relative  weight 
which  they  give  to  particular  excellences.  A  cer- 
tain quality  will  be  admitted  by  all  to  be  a  virtue 
(and  so  there  is  agreement  and  a  possibility  of 
some  principles  of  criticism),  but  that  quality  will 
seem  a  more  important  virtue  to  one  critic  than  to 
the  next.  Literary  criticism  must  certainly  make 
allowance  for  such  variety  of  preference,  which 
is  entirely  consistent  with  more  fundamental  agree- 
ment. I  may  admire  Browning's  work  more  than 
Tennyson's,  because  I  admire  vigor  and  robustness 
both  of  thought  and  emotion  more  than  I  admire 
refinement,  grace,  and  delicacy  ;  but  that  is  no  rea- 
son why  I  should  not  appreciate  both  men  intelli- 
gently. Mr.  A r 1 1  ( 1 1  ( 1  was  not  blind  to  Pope's  dear 
insight,  wit,  terseness,  point:  he  admits  all  these 
qualities  to  be  virtues  —  "admirable  and  splen- 
did" virtues  lie  calls  them:  hut  he  insists  that 
they  are  not  relatively  important  virtues  in  poetry. 
Very    well  ;    perhaps   they    are    not.      That    depends 

on  how  you  define  poetry,  and  definition  is  mostly 

a  matter  of  usage.      Whether    Tope's  verse  is  what 


24       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Mr.  Arnold  calls  poetry  or  not,  is  not  so  very  im- 
portant a  question :  it  is  important  that  we  all 
should  be  able  to  appreciate  Pope's  verse,  to  under- 
stand and  feel  those  qualities  of  universal  interest 
that  make  it  literature. 

Two  other  arguments  against  the  possibility  of 
anything  like  a  science  of  criticism  are  based,  not 
on  the  diversity  of  opinion  in  the  critic,  but  on  the 
nature  of  literature  itself. 

3.  It  is  said  that  the  range  of  admitted  literary 
effects  is  practically  infinite,  so  that  you  cannot  re- 
duce them  to  law,  or  point  out  any  qualities  com- 
mon to  all  writing  that  deserves  to  be  called  litera- 
ture. Consider,  it  is  urged,  how  numerous  and 
how  essentially  different,  often  essentially  oppo- 
site, are  the  qualities  which  any  catholic  taste 
recognizes  in  literature.  For  the  question  now  is 
not  the  difficulty  of  agreement  between  different 
observers,  but  the  difficulty  of  imposing  any  com- 
mon description  upon  the  almost  infinite  variety 
of  attractions  that  literature  has  for  one  man.  The 
man  with  breadth  of  literary  appreciation  will  ad- 
mire Buskin's  imaginative  profusion,  but  he  will 
also  admire  Arnold's  chaste  precision  or  the 
homely  robustness  of  Swift.  He  will  admire  the 
romantic  emotion  of  Shelley,  but  he  will  admire 
also  the  classic  satire  of  Pope  or  the  masculine 
common  sense  of  Dryden.  And  he  will  insist  that 
all  these  qualities  are  literary  qualities ;  that  the 
ten-line  lyric,  nay  the  very  phrase,  — 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  25 

"I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much 
Loved  I  not  honor  more  ! " 

is  as  truly  literature  as  the  epic,  just  as  the  en- 
graved gem  is  as  surely  art  as  the  colossal  statue. 
The  means  by  which  writing  gains  literary  recog- 
nition being  thus  so  varied  —  sometimes  by  appeal 
to  the  intellect,  sometimes  to  the  emotions,  some- 
times by  some  indefinable  grace  or  happy  accident 
of  form,  some  turn  of  phrase  which  makes  a  line 
as  lasting  as  the  pyramids,  but  which  there  is  no 
recipe  for  and  no  possibility  of  explaining  —  these 
causes  being  so  numerous  and  combining  to  pro- 
duce such  an  infinite  variety  of  effects,  it  is  argued 
that  there  is  no  possibility  of  reducing  them  to  a 
few  classes  or  bringing  them  all  under  a  few  laws. 
If  your  laws  and  classes  are  few,  they  will  be 
mere  commonplaces ;  if  they  are  numerous,  you 
will  soon  find  yourself  in  the  endless  task  of  try- 
ing to  enumerate  all  the  powers  of  intellect  or  sus- 
ceptibilities of  emotion  to  which  literature  makes 
appeal,  without  really  doing  anything  to  explain 
the  nature  of  literature  or  to  increase  your  appreci- 
ation of  it.  Literature  is,  in  fact,  the  record  of  the 
whole  life  of  man,  and  its  sources  of  interest,  there- 
Pore,  are  as  many  and  as  varied  as  those  of  the  wide 
human  life  it  represents.  The  function  of  criti- 
cism, thru,  should  be  to  point  out  whatever  is  of 
interest  in  each  individual  specimen  of  literature, 
but  not  to  talk  about  greater  or  less,  or  to  attempt 
to  set  up  any  standards  of  measurement  or  even  of 


26       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

appreciation.  Criticism  —  to  use  a  figure  often 
employed  —  is  a  sign-post  to  point  out  -whatever  in 
any  particular  work  seems  to  the  critic  most  inter- 
esting to  himself,  and  so  likely  to  be  of  interest  to 
most  other  people  ;  and  the  excellence  of  the  criti- 
cism will  depend  entirely  upon  the  intelligence  and 
sympathy  of  the  individual  critic. 

Now  it  may  be  admitted  that  this  objection,  like 
the  previous  one,  imposes  some  limitations  upon  the 
attempt  to  lay  down  any  principles  of  criticism  ;  but 
surely  it  does  not  forbid  that  attempt  altogether. 
The  variety  of  literary  effects  is  indeed  almost 
infinite  ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  impossible 
to  do  anything  toward  such  systematic  discussion 
of  them  as  shall  help  us  to  appreciate  and  estimate 
them.  In  fact,  the  moment  we  attempt  to  discrim- 
inate between  literary  qualities  or  estimate  their 
value  in  any  wise,  we  imply  some  standard  by  which 
they  may  be  measured  and  classified.  It  would 
certainly  be  an  endless  task  to  make  an  exhaustive 
enumeration  of  all  effects  that  literature  produces 
and  to  arrange  and  classify  them  minutely.  But  it 
can  hardly  be  hopeless  to  attempt  to  suggest  some 
points  at  which  all  writings  to  be  properly  called 
literature  are  in  agreement,  and  some  qualities 
which  whenever  present  are  virtues.  For  instance, 
imagination  may  show  itself  in  a  thousand  different 
shapes,  but  still  it  is  in  some  shape  or  other  always 
a  requisite  of  poetry.  And  if  so,  any  discussion  of 
imagination,  of  its  nature  and  modes  of  working, 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  27 

ought  to  aid  our  appreciation  of  it  wherever  it 
appears. 

4.  But  there  is  a  fourth  objection  urged  against 
the  possibility  of  a  scientific  method  in  criticism 
which  is  more  weighty  than  either  of  those  men- 
tioned. Literature,  it  is  said,  is  the  expression  of 
individuality.  In  the  last  analysis,  we  are  told,  the 
power  and  charm  of  any  work  of  literature  depend 
upon  that  inexplicable  thing  we  call  personality  or 
genius.  And  there  is  no  prescription  for  genius. 
Lay  down  any  rules  or  principles  you  please  and 
you  will  find  that  of  two  books  which  alike  seem 
to  conform  to  them,  one  is  good  literature  and  the 
other  isn't.  And  your  criticism  cannot  tell  why. 
You  can  only  say,  Here  is  genius  and  there  is  not : 
a  living  man  is  in  this  book  and  not  in  the  other. 
For  the  very  first  requisite  of  marked  personality, 
of  course,  is  that  it  is  unique,  and  so  in  strictness 
not  to  be  defined  or  classified.  Every  work  of  lit- 
erature  really  expressive  of  personality  must,  there- 
fore, be  a  new  creation.  You  cannot  apply  rules  to 
it,  because  its  very  virtue  resides  largely  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  expression  of  a  unique  personality. 
This  objection  has  been  well  put  by  Mr.  Saints- 
bury,  — 

"It  is  all  but  demonstrable  that  'scientific' 
literary    criticism    is    impossible    unless    the    word 

'  scientific  '  is  to  have  its  meaning  very  illegitimately 

altered.  For  the  essential  qualities  of  literature,  as 
of  all  art,  are  communicated  by  the  individual,  they 


28       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

depend  upon  idiosyncrasy ;  and  this  makes  science 
in  any  proper  sense  powerless.  She  can  deal  only 
with  classes,  only  with  general  laws ;  and  so  long 
as  these  classes  are  constantly  reduced  to  'species 
of  one,'  and  these  laws  are  set  at  nought  by  incal- 
culable and  singular  influences,  she  must  be  con- 
stantly baffled  and  find  all  her  elaborate  plant  of 
formulas  and  generalizations  useless.  .  .  .  You  will 
find  that  on  the  showing  of  this  science  falsely  so 
called,  there  is  no  reason  why  Chapelain  should  not 
be  a  poet,  and  none  why  Shakespeare  is.  You  will 
ask  science  in  vain  to  tell  you  why  some  dozen  or 
sixteen  of  the  simplest  words  in  language  arranged 
by  one  man  or  in  one  fashion,  why  a  certain  num- 
ber of  dabs  of  colour  arranged  by  another  man  or  in 
another  fashion,  make  a  permanent  addition  to  the 
delight  of  the  world,  while  other  words  and  other 
dabs  of  colour,  differently  arranged  by  others,  do 
not." x 

All  criticism  of  a  scientific  sort,  it  is  said,  must 
miss  the  essential  quality  we  wish  to  get  at.  For 
all  criticism  according  to  method  must  proceed  by 
similarities  and  conformities,  and  so  must  result  at 
last  only  in  showing  us  wherein  one  author  resembles 
another  author  —  that  is,  wherein  they  both,  and  all 
other  great  authors,  have  conformed  to  what  you 
call  principles  of  art.  But  this  is  not  what  we  want 
to  know.     We  do  not  care  that  the  critic  should  tell 

!"  Essays  in  English  Literature,  1780-1860."  Introduction, 
p.  zii. 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  29 

us  wherein  Milton  resembles  Homer,  and  Vergil, 
and  Dante;  or  point  out  that  all  take  as  their  sub- 
ject a  single  action,  or  a  great  action ;  that  all  pre- 
serve unity  of  plan  with  variety  of  incident,  and 
what  not.  All  this,  it  is  urged,  does  not  explain 
Milton  to  us.  We  wish  rather  to  be  made  to  feel 
what  is  essential  and  peculiar  to  Milton  in  the  poem, 
that  wherein  he  differs  from  others  ;  we  want  to  be 
made  to  taste  the  true  Miltonic  flavor  of  his  work. 
This  it  is  to  appreciate  Milton,  and  this  the  formal 
critic  never  can  do  for  us. 

Well,  it  may  be  granted  at  once  that  no  kind  of 
criticism  can  do  that  for  us  fully.  If  we  wish  to 
taste  the  full  flavor  of  an  author's  personality, 
we  must  read  his  work  ourselves ;  nobody  can 
taste  it  for  us.  But  the  objection  proves  too  much. 
If  good  at  all,  it  is  good  against  all  criticism 
except  the  expression  of  individual  likes  or  dis- 
likes, the  criticism  of  personal  impression.  Much 
modern  criticism,  indeed,  is  of  precisely  that  sort, 
purely  empirical.  The  critic  declares  that  he  is 
pleased  or  is  not  pleased,  and  there  an  end.  And 
if  the  critic  have  the  gift  of  expression,  pointed,  or 
willy,  or  picturesque,  such  criticism  may  be  very 
pleasant  reading  —  that  of  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  for 
instance.  Or.  if  he  be  a  thoughtful  man  with 
insight  and  judgment,  then  his  likes  and  dis- 
likes will  he  very  instructive  whether  he  give  any 
reasons  for  them  or  not.  A  good  deal  of  Matthew 
Arnold's    criticism    was    of    this    magisterial    sort; 


30       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

but  it  was  always  in  the  best  sense  masterly.  Yet 
we  feel  that  there  ought  to  be  some  other  basis  for 
criticism  than  this.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to 
say,  "  I  approve  this ;  I  find  undeniable  but  in- 
explicable genius  here."  We  ask  instinctively, 
"  Yes,  but  why  do  you  like  it  ?  What  is  the  evi- 
dence of  genius  ? "  Even  Mr.  Saintsbury,  in  a 
paragraph  following  that  just  now  quoted,  objects 
to  this  kind  of  criticism, — 

"The  full  and  proper  office  of  the  critic  can 
never  be  discharged  except  by  those  who  remember 
that  'critic'  means  'judge.'  Expressions  of  per- 
sonal liking,  though  they  can  hardly  be  kept  out  of 
criticism,  are  not  by  themselves  judgment.  The 
famous  'J'aime  mieux  Alfred  de  Musset,'  though 
it  came  from  a  man  of  extraordinary  mental  power 
and  no  small  specially  critical  ability,  is  not  criti- 
cism. Mere  obiter  dicta  of  any  kind,  though  they 
may  be  most  agreeable  and  even  most  legitimate 
set-offs  to  critical  conversation,  are  not  criticism. 
.  .  .  There  must  be  at  least  some  attempt  to  take 
and  render  the  whole  virtue  of  the  subjects  con- 
sidered, some  effort  to  compare  them  with  their 
likes  in  other  as  well  as  the  same  languages,  some 
endeavor  to  class  and  value  them." x 

But  if  it  be  true  that  the  mere  rendering  of  per- 
sonal impressions  is  not  criticism,  if  there  must  be 
some  effort  to  "  judge,"  then  certainly  there  must 

1 "  Essays  in  English  Literature,  1780-18(30."  Introduction, 
p.  xv. 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  31 

be  some  standard  of  judgment;  if  there  must  be 
some  attempt  to  "  class  and  value,"  there  must  be 
some  principles  of  classification  and  some  measure 
of  value.  Indeed,  you  cannot  attempt  to  describe 
the  personal  element  in  literature  on  which  it  is 
claimed  its  power  depends,  without  having  resort 
at  every  step  to  principles  or  qualities  supposed  to 
be  understood.  And  although  there  will  doubtless 
be  in  any  work  of  genius  outstanding  qualities  that 
defy  analysis  or  classification,  the  attempt  to  criti- 
cise such  a  work  in  any  way  whatever  must  pre- 
suppose some  general  principles  understood. 

]>ut  while  these  objections  do  not  preclude  the 
possibility  of  a  methodical  criticism,  it  is  well  to 
recognize  at  the  outset  that,  as  already  said,  they 
do  impose  serious  limitations  upon  it.  There  is  an 
almost  infinite  range  of  literary  effects;  and  there  is 
an  inexplicable  quality  in  genius  which  manifests 
itself  in  unexpected  ways,  and  will  not  be  confined 
by  any  rules.  The  general  principles  of  criticism 
must  therefore  be  few  and  very  simple.  We  can- 
not hope  to  lay  down  a  huge  or  a  detailed  body  of 
rules  which  will  prove  to  be  of  general  application ; 
and  we  should  beware  of  any  attempt  to  do  so. 
Such  rules  are  likely  to  be  traditional,  or  the  for- 
mulation of  B  merely  temporary  mood,  or  perhaps 
still  more  probably,  only  the  deliverance  of  the  in- 
dividual taste  of  the  critic.  Even  the  best  critics 
have  not  always  escaped  this  danger  of  mistaking 
their  own  private  judgment  —  sometimes  their  own 


32       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

caprice  —  for  unvarying  law.  But  criticism  is 
something  more  than  individual  preference,  whether 
the  critic  be  great  or  small ;  it  ought  to  base  itself 
on  principles  which,  though  few  and  elementary, 
are  undisputed. 

It  is  well  to  remember,  furthermore,  that  the 
principles  of  criticism  are  not  to  be  regarded  as 
rules  for  creation.  They  are  intended  not  so  much 
for  the  artist  himself  as  for  those  who  would  ap- 
preciate his  work.  You  cannot  say  to  the  poet  or 
novelist,  "  Go,  do  so  and  so,  follow  these  rules  and 
make  a  book."  The  best  things  in  art  are  never 
wrought  out  merely  by  obedience  to  rule  and  for- 
mula. All  rules  and  principles  are  derived  from 
literature,  not  the  literature  from  rules  and  prin- 
ciples. 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  any  critical  prin- 
ciples can  give  us  a  short  and  easy  method  even  of 
judging  a  work  of  art.  For  any  work  of  art,  most 
of  all  a  great  work  of  literature,  is  a  very  complex 
thing.  It  has  a  great  variety  of  qualities,  com- 
bined as  they  are  not  anywhere  else.  We  cannot 
hope  to  appreciate  or  measure  all  these  qualities  by 
applying  to  it  a  few  elementary  principles.  More- 
over, it  goes  without  saying  that  rules  and  prin- 
ciples, however  valuable,  are  not  the  first  essential 
in  the  equipment  of  the  critic.  They  presuppose 
a  certain  sensitiveness  and  sympathy  which  may 
furnish  the  material  for  critical  judgment.  The 
critic    must  himself  feel   and   see,  before  he  can 


DEFINITIONS   AND   LIMITATIONS  33 

judge.  But  rules  and  principles,  though  they  can 
never  generate  that  sensitiveness  to  literary  effects 
which  is  the  first  requisite  of  any  appreciation, 
may  be  of  service  to  us  in  guiding  our  sympathies, 
correcting  the  aberrations  of  taste,  and  bringing 
our  spontaneous  individual  judgments  into  accord 
with  that  final  good  judgment  which  is  permanent. 
Perhaps  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  remark  by  way 
of  caution,  before  leaving  this  introductory  chapter, 
that  the  discussion  of  such  a  subject  as  Literary 
Criticism  can  hardly  claim  to  be  always  interesting. 
The  critical  temper  is  not  so  attractive  as  the  im- 
aginative or  emotional ;  and  the  study  of  criticism 
must  perforce  forgo  the  charm  that  belongs  to  the 
study  of  literature  itself.  Much  criticism  is  litera- 
ture, to  be  sure ;  but  then  it  is  something  more  than 
criticism. 

D 


CHAPTER  SECOND 
What  is  Literature  ? 

It  was  stated  at  the  close  of  the  previous  chapter 
that  the  principles  of  criticism  must  be  derived 
from  a  study  of  the  literature  itself ;  that  a  book  is 
not  literature  because  it  conforms  to  certain  rules, 
but  rather  that  these  rules  are  valid  because  they 
are  drawn  from  admitted  works  of  literature.  Ob- 
viously, then,  at  the  outset  of  our  discussion,  this 
question  presents  itself :  What  is  the  body  of  writ- 
ings from  which  these  rules  and  principles  are 
drawn  ?  What  is  literature  ?  Moreover,  if  we  can 
answer  this  question  satisfactorily,  we  may  find 
ourselves  advanced  some  way  in  our  discussion  of 
these  principles  themselves.  Since,  if  there  be  any 
discoverable  essentials  of  literature  as  such,  we 
shall  be  most  likely  to  find  all  valuable  critical 
principles,  or  laws,  by  considering  carefully  these 
essentials,  their  relative  value,  the  conditions  on 
which  they  depend,  and  the  ways  in  which  they 
are  combined. 

But  here  we  meet  a  difficulty  which  constantly 
recurs  in  critical  discussion,  —  the  difficulty  of  giv- 
ing accurate  definition  to  words  in  common  use 
with  a  wide  and  vague  significance.  Such  words 
34 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  35 

as  literature,  as  also,  for  other  examples,  beauty, 
poetry,  imagination,  idealism,  are  used  by  us  all 
without  any  attempt  to  define  for  ourselves  pre- 
cisely what  we  mean  by  them.  We  find  they 
designate  accurately  enough  the  most  of  the  things 
associated  with  them  in  our  thought,  and  we  do 
not  trouble  ourselves  if  there  be,  so  to  speak,  a 
ragged  fringe  on  either  side  of  the  line  of  their 
meaning.  It  is  only  when  we  try  to  define  such 
terms  that  we  realize  how  vague  and  careless  is  our 
use  of  them.  We  find  it  difficult  to  make  out  with 
precision  the  limits  of  meaning  we  ourselves  would 
assign  to  them ;  and  when  we  have  done  that,  we 
find  our  neighbor  has  assigned  quite  different  ones; 
so  that  we  are  often  driven  to  one  of  two  or  three 
makeshifts.  We  may  give  to  such  a  word  a  signifi- 
cation so  wide  as  to  cover  all  its  uses,  but  of  little 
value  because  too  vague  to  fix  the  essential  qual- 
ity that  the  word  ought  to  signify ;  or  we  may  give 
the  word  several  meanings,  showing,  if  we  can, 
what  they  have  in  common;  or  we  may  arbitrarily 
fix  on  a  meaning,  and  confine  our  own  use  to  it, 
recognizing  that  others  use  the  word  in  other  senses. 
But  the  difficulty,  in  one  form  or  another,  besets  all 

such  discussions  as  we  have  before  us. 

If  we  go  to  the  books  for  ready-made  definitions 
of  literature,  we  shall  nol  easily  find  what  we  seek. 
Definitions  enough,  Indeed,  there  are;  hut  they 
prove  to  be  only  suggestive  or  descriptive.  It 
WOUld   be   easy  to  till  pages  with  them.      1  will  cite 


36       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

but  one  passage,  in  which  a  prominent  writer,  who 
has  the  advantage  of  a  judgment  trained  in  prac- 
tical affairs,  asks  this  question  :  — 

"  What  is  literature  ?  It  has  often  been  defined. 
Emerson  says  it  is  a  record  of  the  best  thoughts. 
'  By  literature,'  says  another  author,  —  I  think  Mr. 
Stopf ord  Brooke,  — '  we  mean  the  written  thoughts 
and  feelings  of  intelligent  men  and  women  arranged 
in  a  way  that  shall  give  pleasure  to  the  reader.'  A 
third  account  is  that  '  the  aim  of  a  student  is  to 
know  the  best  that  has  been  thought  in  the  world.' * 
Definitions  always  appear  to  me,  in  these  things, 
to  be  in  the  nature  of  vanity.  I  feel  that  the  at- 
tempt to  be  compact  in  the  definition  of  literature 
ends  in  something  that  is  rather  meagre,  partial, 
starved,  and  unsatisfactory.  I  turn  to  the  answer 
given  by  a  great  French  writer  to  a  question  not 
quite  the  same,  viz. :  <  What  is  a  classic  ? '  Litera- 
ture consists  of  a  whole  body  of  classics,  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word,  and  a  classic,  as  Sainte- 
Beuve  defines  him,  is  '  an  author  who  has  enriched 
the  human  mind,  who  has  really  added  to  its  treas- 
ure, who  has  got  it  to  take  a  step  farther ;  who  has 
discovered  some  unequivocal  moral  truth,  or  pene- 
trated to  some  eternal  passion,  in  that  heart  of 
man  where  it  seemed  as  though  all  were  known 

1  Mr.  Morley  is  apparently  quoting,  but  very  inaccurately, 
from  Matthew  Arnold's  essay,  "The  Function  of  Criticism." 
Mr.  Arnold  says  it  is  the  "  business  "  —  not  of  the  student,  but 
of  criticism  —  "  to  know  the  best  that  is  thought  and  known  in 
the  world." 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  37 

and  explored ;  who  has  produced  his  thought  or 
his  observation  or  his  invention  under  some  form, 
no  matter  what,  so  it  be  large,  acute,  and  reasona- 
ble, sane,  and  beautiful  in  itself ;  who  has  spoken 
to  all  in  a  style  of  his  own,  yet  a  style  which  finds 
itself  the  style  of  everybody,  —  in  a  style  that  is 
at  once  new  and  antique,  and  is  the  contemporary 
of  all  the  ages.' !  At  a  single  hearing  you  may  not 
take  all  that  in ;  but  if  you  should  have  any  oppor- 
tunity of  recurring  to  it  you  will  find  this  a  satis- 
factory, full,  and  instructive  account  of  what  those 
who  have  thought  most  on  literature  hope  to  get 
from  it,  and  most  would  desire  to  confer  upon 
others  by  it.  Literature  consists  of  all  the  books  — 
and  they  are  not  so  many  —  whore  moral  truth  and 
human  passion  are  touched  with  a  certain  largeness, 
sanity,  and  attraction  of  form." 2 

Any  author  who  should  meet  all  the  requirements 
specified  by  Sainte-Beuve  in  this  passage  would 
certainly  pass  muster  as  a  classic  —  indeed,  it  is 
probable  that  many  acknowledged  classics  could 
hardly  show  so  many  credentials;  but  surely  we 
must  not  restrict  the  term  lib  rature  to  the  compar- 
atively few  books  that  are  "classics"  of  this  very 
high  order.  And  eveD  so,  Mr.  Morley's  passage 
is  a  description  of  Literature,  oot  a  definition.     We 

certainly  cannot  "  take  it  all  in  at  a  single  hearing," 
1  The  essay  from  which  Mr.  Morley  quotes  may  be  found  in 

the  "  Causerles  du  Lundi,"  ill.  (1850). 

,J  John  Blorlej ,  "  On  the  Study  of  Literature." 


38       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

and  when  we  do  take  it  in,  we  find  that  it  is 
hardly  compact  or  clear  enough  for  a  working 
definition. 

But  let  us  see  if  we  cannot  work  toward  such  a 
conception  of  literature  as  will  be  accepted  by 
every  one,  and  at  the  same  time  shall  designate  the 
essential  and  distinguishing  qualities  of  literature 
in  a  form  compact  and  definite  enough  to  be  of  real 
service.  How  do  we  most  frequently  use  the  word  ? 
We  do  not  call  all  printed  matter  literature ;  that 
is  certain.  What  do  we  not  call  so  ?  We  do  not 
call  an  almanac  literature;  we  do  not  call  the  news 
columns  of  a  newspaper  literature.  Why  not  ? 
Manifestly  because  we  are  to  throw  these  away  to- 
morrow. Literature  must  have  some  permanence. 
This  idea  of  permanence  we  shall  find  always  im- 
plicated in  our  conception  of  literature.  Indeed,  it 
might  be  a  useful  provisional  definition  of  litera- 
ture to  say  that  it  consists  of  those  books  which 
have  permanent  value.  But  this  definition  would 
be  of  little  ultimate  service,  since  it  leaves  unan- 
swered the  essential  question,  What  gives  a  book 
permanent  value  ?  It  must,  clearly,  contain  some- 
thing that  will  always  be  of  value  or  interest  to 
men ;  but  that  is  not  enough.  A  table  of  logarithms, 
a  report  of  the  State  Board  of  Charities,  the  vol- 
umes that  fill  the  shelves  of  the  lawyer  —  we  do 
not  call  these  books  literature.  Yet  they  contain 
matter  of  permanent  value.  The  table  of  loga- 
rithms will  be  of  value 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  39 

'•  Till  the  sun  grows  cold 
And  the  stars  wax  old ; " 

aud  the  lawyer,  the  statesman,  the  historian,  will 
always  find  the  material  for  his  labors  in  such  vol- 
umes as  the  others  enumerated.  Yet  we  never 
think  of  them  as  literature.  We  may  go  further 
in  the  same  method  of  exclusion.  We  hesitate  to 
pronounce  a  treatise  on  algebra  or  conic  sections 
literature,  or  a  treatise  on  geology,  or  a  treatise  on 
analytic  psychology,  or  a  treatise  on  dogmatic  the- 
ology. These  books  certainly  all  contain  matter  of 
permanent  value  to  men;  yet  we  should  probably 
rule  out  the  conic  sections  instantly,  hesitate  a  little 
on  the  geology,  and  perhaps  be  in  doubt  as  to  the 
psychology  and  theology.  But  some  book  made  up 
of  pretty  trifles  of  verse  about  garlands,  and  girls, 
and  locks  of  hair  we  admit  instantly  to  the  category 
of  literature.  The  one  set  of  books  contain  endur- 
ing truths  that  men  can  never  hereafter  forget  or 
live  without;  the  other  book  contains  some  grace- 
ful nothings  that  a  Waller  has  said  or  sung  to 
his  Saeliarissa,  a  llerriek  to  his  Julia.  Vet  the 
weighty  book  we  shake  our  heads  over  and  rule 
out;  the  book  of  trifles  is  unquestioned  literature 
and  down  in  all  the  histories.  Now,  why  is  this? 
Perhaps  our  provisional  definition  will  help  us  a 
step  further  here.  We  have  said  that  literature 
mighl  lie  said  tn  consist — not  of  those  books  that 

contain  truths  of  permanent  interest,  but  of  books 
that   are  themselves  of  permanent  interest.    That 


40       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

test  these  graver  books  can  hardly  meet.  The  facts 
and  truths  they  contain  are,  indeed,  of  permanent 
value ;  but  the  books  are  not.  Because  the  facts 
and  truths  can  be  restated  in  other  forms,  applied  in 
manifold  ways,  and  so  become  part  of  the  common 
stock  of  men's  knowledge,  while  the  books  them- 
selves in  which  the  truths  were  first  stated  shall 
perish  utterly.  The  truths  live;  the  books  die. 
Nobody  now  needs  to  go  to  the  original  treatise  of 
Newton  to  learn  the  essential  truths  of  the  theory 
of  gravitation;  they  are  incorporated  into  all 
physical  knowledge  and  taken  for  granted  in  all 
physical  discussion.  Now,  no  book  is  literature, 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  if  it  is  liable  to  be 
superseded  next  year  or  next  century  by  another 
book  saying  the  same  things  and  saying  them 
better.  The  book  itself  must  have  permanence  and 
not  be  the  temporary  receptacle  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  truth.  And  thus  the  question  still  recurs, 
What  gives  a  book  this  individual  life  ? 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  a  book  has  this  individ- 
ual life  when  it  is  the  expression  of  the  personality 
of  its  author,  when  it  in  some  way  represents  the 
individuality  of  a  man.  It  is  undoubtedly  true,  as 
was  stated  in  the  last  chapter,  that  a  genuine  work 
of  literature  does  in  some  way  express  the  person- 
ality of  its  author  ;  but  is  the  converse  true  ?  Is 
every  book  that  expresses  personality  literature? 
Hardly.  Not  to  mention  the  obvious  fact  that  the 
personality  expressed  must  be  permanently  inter- 


WHAT  IS  LITERATURE?  41 

esting, — worth  expression, — there  are  two  objec- 
tions to  this  test  of  literature.  In  the  first  place, 
it  is  vague.  What  is  meant  by  expressing  person- 
ality ?  Does  not  the  treatise  on  dogmatic  theology, 
or  even  a  great  mathematical  treatise,  express  per- 
sonality ?  Does  it  not  display  industry,  persist- 
ence, great  power  of  consecutive  argument,  a 
disposition  and  ability  to  consider  truths  in  their 
most  abstract  and  general  relations  ?  And  sec- 
ondly, if  we  admit  that  every  work  of  literature 
does  reveal  personality  in  some  sense  in  which 
a  work  of  science  cannot  (and  that  doubtless  is 
true),  the  question  still  remains,  IIoiv  does  it  re- 
veal personality  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  poem  is  an 
expression  of  the  individuality  of  the  poet,  while 
the  scientific  treatise  does  not  express  the  individ- 
uality of  the  scientist  ?  If  we  can  get  at  the 
quality  by  virtue  of  which  the  one  can,  while  the 
other  in  want  of  that  quality  cannot,  reveal  person- 
ality, we  may  find  it  to  be  what  we  are  seeking, 
the  distinguishing,  defining  mark  of  literature. 

Now  if  we  compare  those  books  containing  truths 
of  undoubted  value,  but  not  ranked  as  literature, — 
the  t  reatise  on  calculus,  or  geology,  or  philosophy, — 
with  the  poem  which  seems  to  contain  no  truth  of 
permanent;  value,  but  proves  itself  literature  by 
Btrangely  refusing  to  die,  —  what  quality  shall  we 
find  in  the  poem  that  is  not  in  the  treatise?  Just 
this:  the  poem  appeals  to  the  emotions,  while  the 
treatise   appeals   to   the   intellect.       And   here,    I 


42       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

think,  we  shall  find  the  mark  we  seek.  It  is  the 
poiver  to  appeal  to  the  emotions  that  gives  a  book  per- 
manent interest,  and  consequently  literary  quality. 

Let  us  see  whether  this  power  will  explain  the 
qualities  of  permanence  and  individuality  that  lit- 
erature, we  admit,  must  possess.  As  to  perma- 
nence, by  a  kind  of  paradox  it  may  be  said  that  it 
is  the  very  transiency  of  emotion  which  makes  a 
book  of  lasting  interest.  One  of  the  essential 
differences  between  knowledge  and  emotion  is 
that  knowledge  is  lasting  and  emotion  is  fleeting. 
Whenever  we  have  thoroughly  learned  a  fact  or 
truth,  we  have  it ;  it  is  so  much  addition  to  our 
permanent  stock  of  knowledge.  Our  powers  of  re- 
tention are  limited,  to  be  sure  :  we  may  forget  a 
fact  or  truth ;  but  it  is  not  necessary  from  the  con- 
stitution of  our  minds  that  we  should.  When, 
therefore,  we  have  once  read  and  mastered  some 
treatise  that  appeals  to  the  intellect,  we  do  not  care 
to  read  it  again.  The  truths  it  contains  are  part 
of  our  permanent  intellectual  acquisitions,  and  the 
book  itself  is  thrown  by.  Emotion,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  essentially  different.  It  is  by  its  nature 
transient.  We  speak  of  emotions,  but  we  cannot 
speak  of  knowledges  ;  because  knowledge  is  a  per- 
manent acquisition,  while  emotions  are  a  series  of 
constantly  changing  experiences.  The  emotion 
which  I  feel  from  reading  the  poem  now  will  be 
gone  two  hours  from  now.  It  cannot  persist.  It 
will   be  renewed  again,  however,  though  perhaps 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  43 

with  less  intensity,  whenever  I  read  the  poem  again 
or  remember  it ;  but  I  must  have  the  book  itself, 
either  in  fact  or  memory,  as  a  stimulus  to  the  emo- 
tion. And  thus  I  return  to  it  again  and  again.  If 
it  deserves  to  be  called  literature  at  all,  I  may 
wish  to  read  it  more  than  once  ;  if  it  be  great  liter- 
ature, any  number  of  readings  will  not  exhaust  it. 
It  is  for  me  an  abiding  book. 

Notice  also  that  it  is  this  power  of  appeal  to  the 
emotions  that  explains  the  permanence  of  a  book 
from  century  to  century,  through  the  ages.  It  was 
remarked  in  the  previous  chapter  that  art  is  the 
only  thing  that  lasts  ;  that  while  the  science,  the 
knowledge  of  Homer's  day  is  antiquated,  Homer 
is  not  antiquated.  Why  not  ?  Simply  because 
Homer  makes  appeal  to  the  emotions,  and  men's 
emotions  remain  essentially  the  same.  That  is, 
while  any  single  emotion  is  transient,  the  general 
character  of  human  emotion  does  not  greatly  alter. 
Each  successive  wave  of  feeling  rises  for  its  little 
instant,  breaks  and  passes;  but  the  ocean  of  waves 
rolls  steadily  on  through  the  ages.  It  is  true,  in- 
deed, that  there  must  be  a  development  in  the 
affections,  the  sensibilities,  tin*  whole  range  of  feel- 
ing; yet  the  great  fundamental  emotions  of  the 
race  suffer  comparatively  little  change  either  in 
their  nature  or  their  objects.  It  is  the  "thoughts 
df    men,"    rather    than    their   feelings,   thai    are 

"widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns."  The 
story  of  Achilles'    wrath,   the   love  of   HectOI   and 


44       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Andromache,  the  passion  of  Paris  and  Helen, — 
these  remain  ever  warm  and  moving.  Without 
this  stability  in  human  emotions  all  great  art 
would  be  impossible.1 


1  The  writer  who  has  stated  most  clearly  this  power  to  ap- 
peal to  the  emotions  as  a  test  of  literature  is  De  Quincey.  His 
view  may  be  seen  in  the  following  paragraphs :  — 

"  In  a  philosophical  use  of  the  word,  Literature  is  the  direct 
and  adequate  antithesis  of  Books  of  Knowledge.  .  .  .  Now 
what  is  that  antithesis  to  knowledge  which  is  here  implicitly 
latent  in  the  word  literature  ?  The  vulgar  antithesis  is  pleasure 
(' aut  prodesse  volant,  aut  delectare  poetre').  Books,  we  are 
told,  propose  to  instruct  or  amuse.  Indeed  !  However,  not  to 
spend  any  words  upon  it,  I  suppose  you  will  admit  that  this 
wretched  antithesis  will  he  of  no  service  to  us.  .  .  .  The  true 
antithesis  to  knowledge,  in  this  case,  is  not  pleasure,  but 
power.  All  that  is  literature  seeks  to  communicate  power;  all 
that  is  not  literature,  to  communicate  knowledge.  Now  if  it  be 
asked  what  is  meant  by  communicating  power,  I,  in  my  turn, 
would  ask  by  what  name  a  man  would  designate  the  case  in 
which  I  should  be  made  to  feel  vividly,  and  with  a  vital  con- 
sciousness, emotions  which  ordinary  life  rarely  or  never  sup- 
plies occasions  for  exciting  ?"  —  "Letters  to  a  Young  Man," 
iii.,  Works,  X.,  48. 

"  In  that  great  social  organ  which,  collectively,  we  call  litera- 
ture, there  may  be  distinguished  two  separate  offices  that  may 
blend,  and  often  do  so,  but  capable  severally  of  a  severe  insula- 
tion, and  naturally  fitted  for  a  reciprocal  repulsion.  There  is, 
first,  the  literature  of  knmoledge  ;  and,  secondly,  the  literature 
of  power.  The  function  of  the  first  is  —  to  teach  ;  the  function 
of  the  second  is  —  to  move  :  the  first  is  a  rudder ;  the  second  an 
oar  or  a  sail.  The  first  speaks  to  the  mere  discursive  under- 
standing ;  the  second  speaks  ultimately,  it  may  happen,  to  the 
higher  understanding  or  reason,  but  always  through  affections 
of  pleasure  and  sympathy."  —  "The  Poetry  of  Pope,"  Works, 
XL,  54. 

The  term  power  used  by  De  Quincey  in  these  passages  evi- 
dently means  power  over  our  feelings ;  emotional  appeal.  It 
will  be  noticed,  furthermore,  that  —  especially  in  the  second 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  45 

We  shall  see,  also,  that  this  power  of  appeal  to 
the  emotions  is  the  quality  by  virtue  of  which  a 
book  becomes  an  expression  of  the  personality  of 
its  author.  For  it  is  evident  on  a  moment's  reflec- 
tion that  it  is  only  in  the  realm  of  emotion  that 
there  is  any  opportunity  for  differences  of  indi- 
vidual character  to  find  expression.  Facts  and 
truths,  in  so  far  as  they  are  correctly  apprehended, 
are  the  same  to  all  minds.  "  A  straight  line  is 
the  shortest  distance  between  two  points,"  —  that, 
we  say,  is  a  truth ;  i.e.  a  generalized  statement  of 
objective  fact.  The  exact  sciences  are  made  up  of 
truths  that  can  be  thus  completely  and  precisely 
stated.  And  it  is  the  object  of  all  other  sciences 
to  reduce  the  truths  with  which  they  are  concerned 
to  statement  as  near  to  this  complete  and  precise 
form  as  possible,  so  that  they  shall  have  the  same 
meaning  always,  to  all  men.  "  A  violet  is  a  herba- 
ceous plant,  with  alternate  or  single  leaves,  fur- 
nished with  stipules  and  axillary  flowers,  solitary, 

passage —  De  Quincey  OSes  the  quality  as  a  mark  to  divide  lit- 
erature into  two  kinds,  the  "  literature  <>f  knowledge  "  and  the 

"  literature  of  power."  The  position  taken  in  this  volume  is, 
that  it  serves  rather  U  a  mark  to  distinguish  all  that  is  lit- 
erature from  all  thai  is  not.  If  there  are  ;my  writings  desti- 
tute of  this  power,  they  are  not  literature,  and  would  not  be 
called  so  even  in  popular  asage.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
writings  whose  "  function  is  to  teach"  possess  this  power,  and 
are  then-fore  Literature  history,  for  example,  a  part  of  what 
De  Quincey  terms  the  "  literature  of  knowledge"]  should  not 

deem  literature  at  all  ;  another  ['art  differs  from  his  "  literature 
of  power  "  only  in  possessing  the  power  of  emotional  appeal  in 
lower  degree. 


46       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

with  stem  evident  and  flowers  springing  from  the 
axils  of  the  leaves."  These  statements  do  not  in- 
clude all  the  things  that  we  mean  when  we  say 
"violet,"  nor  all  the  qualities  that  are  found  in 
every  violet ;  but  if  they  are  a  good  definition  they 
do  express  a  group  of  qualities  which  are  always 
found  in  a  violet  and  which  can  be  apprehended 
together  in  the  mind.  If  you  understand  the 
definition  and  I  understand  it,  we  shall  have  the 
same  conception,  and  that  conception  will  be  cor- 
rect, though  not  complete.  The  only  possibility 
of  difference  arises  from  the  imperfection  of  our 
knowledge.  In  a  word,  differences  in  the  intellec- 
tual apprehension  of  a  fact  or  truth  always  arise 
from  ignorance  or  imperfection.  If  two  men  could 
be  conceived  as  having  perfect  intellectual  appre- 
hension of  everything  coming  under  their  notice, 
and  taking  notice  of  the  same  facts  and  truths,  the 
mental  operations  of  the  two  men  would  be  absolutely 
identical.  That  is  the  ideal  toward  which  all  sci- 
ence must  strive.  Now  it  is  evident  that  the  state- 
ment in  language  of  such  facts  and  truths  as  these, 
if  it  be  accurate,  leaves  no  room  for  the  expression 
of  personality.  The  most  nearly  perfect  language 
of  the  intellect  is  the  language  of  algebra;  it  is, 
indeed,  as  nearly  perfect  as  language  can  be,  — 
and  there  is  no  possibility  of  the  expression  of 
personality  by  it.  And  all  scientific  language, 
i.e.  all  language  expressive  of  purely  intellectual 
conceptions,    approaches    perfection    just    in    the 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  47 

degree  that  it  resembles  the  language  of  mathe- 
matics. 

But  the  moment  the  element  of  emotion  enters 
language,  the  personality  of  the  speaker  begins  to 
express  itself.  We  all  ought  to  think  the  same 
thing  alike ;  but  no  two  men  can  feel  just  alike 
about  it.  So  soon  as  an  object  begins  to  touch  the 
feelings,  there  is  diversity  in  its  effects,  and  in  this 
diversity  opportunity  for  the  expression  of  the  in- 
dividual. The  star  that  I  look  out  of  my  window 
upon  ought  to  give  me  sensations  precisely  similar 
to  those  it  gives  my  neighbor;  all  science  is  based 
upon  the  supposition  that  it  does.  The  statements 
of  the  astronomer  as  to  its  distance,  size,  move- 
ments, etc.,  mean  the  same  to  me  as  to  him;  but 
the  emotions  that  the  star  gives  to  my  neighbor 
Avill  probably  be  quite  different  from  those  it  gives 
to  me.  Now  literature  never  attempts  to  state  the 
fact  merely  as  fact;  literature  renders  the  fact  plus 
its  emotional  effect,  in  some  of  its  emotional  rela- 
tions ;  and  as  the  personality  of  any  man  is  revealed 
by  the  way  in  which  tacts  affect  his  emotional  na- 
ture, literature  thus  becomes  at  once  an  expression 
of  personality. 

We  may  notice,  moreover,  that  the  power  to  stir 
the  emotions  is  the  secret  of  other,  wider  qualities 
which  we  often  ascrihe  to  literature.  Poetry,  Mat- 
thew Arnold  used  to  say,  is  the  "  criticism  of  life"  ; 
it  was  a  true,  though  perhaps  a  vague,  definition. 
Poetry  is,  at  all  events,  the  poet's  criticism  of  life; 


48       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

that  is,  the  impression  which  life,  as  he  sees  and 
imagines  it,  makes  upon  his  emotions,  and  which 
he,  in  turn,  tries  to  impress  upon  ours.  But  the 
phrase  is  not  so  strictly  a  description  of  poetry  as 
of  all  literature.  Literature  in  general  is  a  "  criti- 
cism of  life,"  or  perhaps  better,  an  expression  and 
interpretation  of  life.  And  the  point  to  be  noticed 
here  is  that  it  is  this  power  over  emotion  that 
makes  literature  an  interpreter  of  life.  For  life, 
in  the  large  moral  sense  in  which  Ave  use  the  word, 
is  determined,  not  principally  by  outward  facts  and 
circumstances,  nor  yet  by  thought  and  speculation, 
but  by  its  emotions.  Emotions  are  motives,  as  their 
name  implies ;  they  induce  the  will ;  they  decide 
the  whole  current  of  life.  Character  is  indicated 
by  them,  and  must  always  be  educated  through 
them.  "Out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life." 
Literature,  therefore,  which  at  once  speaks  the 
feelings  of  the  writer  and  stirs  those  of  the 
reader,  is  necessarily  the  truest  and  deepest  rec- 
ord of  human  life. 

But  perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  this  test  restricts 
too  narrowly  the  meaning  of  the  word  literature. 
Even  if  it  be  admitted  that  whatever  has  perma- 
nent power  to  appeal  to  the  emotions  is  literature, 
is  the  converse  true,  "  Whatever  is  literature  has 
power  to  appeal  to  the  emotions  "  ?  For  instance, 
it  may  be  urged,  history  is  undoubtedly  literature, 
and  a  very  prominent  variety  of  it ;  yet  history 
does  not  appeal  to  the  emotions.     On  the  contrary, 


WHAT  IS  LITERATUBE ?  49 

it  is  often  claimed  as  a  virtue  for  some  historical 
writing  that  it  does  not  appeal  to  the  emotions,  that 
it  is  a  cool,  impartial  narration  of  facts.  The  test, 
it  is  asserted,  is  a  test  not  of  literature  at  large,  but 
of  poetry,  or  at  most  of  belles-lettres,  of  literature 
regarded  narrowly  as  one  of  the  fine  arts. 

To  this  objection  it  may  be  answered  that  it  is 
not  necessary  that  the  quality  which  makes  a  book 
literature  should  be  the  first  object  and  purpose  of 
the  book.  Nevertheless,  only  in  so  far  as  the  book 
possesses  that  quality  can  it  be  literature.  Not  all 
history  is  literature,  by  any  definition  which  would 
not  include  all  printed  matter ;  but  whenever  his- 
torical writing  is  literature,  and  just  so  far  as  it  is, 
will  it  be  found  to  possess  this  quality  of  exciting 
emotion.  This  is  its  saving  literary  grace.  What 
is  the  difference  between  a  history  which  every- 
body admits  to  be  literature  —  say  Macaulay's  or 
Parkman's  —  and  a  chronicle  which  nobody  thinks 
literature?  The  chronicle  may  be  supposed  to  be 
full  enough  to  contain  all  the  facts  Included  in  the 
history,  yet  manifestly  it  is  only  the  raw  material 
for  history.  Is  not  the  difference,  evidently,  that 
in  tin1  history  facts  are  so  combined  and  narrated 
as  to  appeal  to  our  emotions?  The  history  does 
not  merely  give  us  facts;  it  shows  us  men  ami 
events;  it  makes  upon  us,  we  say,  the  impression  of 
lite.      Ajld  "life"  always  appeals  to   the   emotions. 

The  book,  then,  is  literature  just  in  proportion  as 
it  does  this.     This,  to  lie  sure,  is  not  iis  final  pur- 


50       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

pose.  As  history,  the  purpose  of  the  book  is  to 
bring  us  into  acquaintance  with  some  past  age ; 
and  it  ought,  as  history,  to  have  a  whole  class  of 
virtues  that  are  irrelevant  to  its  claims  as  litera- 
ture, —  accuracy,  fulness,  impartiality.  When  it 
loses  all  these  virtues  it  will  cease  to  be  history 
and  become  historical  fiction ;  but  if  it  still  retain 
its  power  of  appeal  to  the  emotions  it  will  still  be 
literature.  The  excellence  of  the  book  as  histori- 
cal literature  will  depend  on  the  skill  of  the  author 
to  combine  historical  and  literary  virtues.  He  must 
give  us  the  facts  fully,  accurately,  impartially ;  and 
he  must  give  them  to  us  not  as  dry  memoranda  but 
as  living,  moving  action.  For  the  two  classes  of 
qualities  are  not  incompatible  outside  of  strict  sci- 
ence. Indeed,  the  true  historian  knows  that  a 
great  series  of  human  actions  can  never  be  ade- 
quately comprehended  by  the  intellectual  faculties 
alone ;  he  must  set  in  motion  the  sympathies.  For 
human  action  always  involves  moral  quality,  and 
that  can  never  be  understood  or  rightly  estimated 
save  through  the  sympathies.  It  is  only  when  we 
see  the  age  living  again  as  it  did  when  it  was  here, 
and  feel  about  it  as  we  might  have  done  had  we 
been  in  the  midst  of  it,  that  we  are  really  prepared 
to  understand  it.  The  chronicle  is  not  only  not  the 
interesting  book,  it  is  not,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the 
word,  the  true  book. 

A  similar  line  of  remark,  of  course,  may  be  made 
with  reference  to  various  other  forms  of  literature 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  51 

besides  history.  Their  prime  purpose  is  not  to 
appeal  to  the  emotions,  but  it  is  only  as  they  do 
this  that  they  become  literature ;  and  usually  their 
purpose  is  all  the  better  reached  by  means  of  this 
literary  power.  What,  for  example,  distinguishes 
criticism  like  Buskin's  or  Matthew  Arnold's  from 
the  precepts  of  the  rhetoric  book  or  the  bald  discus- 
sion upon  this  page,  if  it  be  not  the  power  of  these 
great  writers  to  warm  and  illuminate  truth  by  a 
constant  play  of  emotion  ? 

In  line,  then,  the  power  to  appeal  to  the  emotions 
is  always  combined  in  literature  with  other  quali- 
ties ;  and  sometimes  the  prime  purpose  of  the  book 
depends  upon  these  other  qualities ;  but  it  will 
none  the  less  be  found  true  that  the  power  to  ap- 
peal to  the  emotions  is  the  distinguishing  literary 
mark.  When  this  appeal  is  the  chief  purpose  of  the 
work,  then  we  have  poetry  or  belles-lettres;  when, 
from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  no  such  appeal  is 
possible,  then  we  may  have  science,  but  not  litera- 
ture ;  when  the  appeal  is  a  means  and  not  an  end, 
or  is  incidental  only,  then  we  have  writing  varying 
in  literary  quality  with  the  force  of  this  appeal.1 

1  Do  Quincey  admits  that  III  practice  it  is  difficult  to  distin- 
guish lirtwern  his  two  kinds  of  literature.  "The  reason  why 
the  broad  distinction!  between  the  two  Literatures  of  power  and 
knowledge  so  little  tiv  the  attention  lies  In  the  tact  that  a  vast 
proportion  of  hooks,  —history,  biography,  travels,  miscellane- 
ous css;i\  s,  rti\,  l\  iu^  in  a  middle  /one,  confound  these  distinc- 
tions by  blending  them."  —  "The  Poetry  of  Pope,"  Works,  XI  , 
58.  it  seems  hardly  wortb  the  while  u>  maintain  a  classification 
which  caunoi  bu  applied  to  a  "  vast  proportion  of  books." 


52       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

But  in  any  case  it  is  only  this  power  over  the  emo- 
tions that  can  keep  alive  the  individual  book. 

Now  if  our  analysis  thus  far  be  correct,  there  is 
a  radical  distinction  between  science  and  literature ; 
so  that  all  writings  of  any  value  might  be  rationally 
divided  into  two  classes,  scientific  and  literary,  as, 
similarly,  all  man's  handiwork  can  be  divided  into 
art  and  fine  art.  In  particular  specimens  the  two 
doubtless  shade  into  each  other ;  but  the  principle 
of  distinction  holds  good.  For  the  division  is  based 
upon  a  fundamental  difference  in  mental  attitude 
and  temper.  The  scientific  temper  observes  all 
things  with  a  view  to  discover  their  mode  of  exist- 
ence, their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  envi- 
ronment ;  the  literary  temper  observes  all  things  in 
their  relations  to  man's  emotional  and  moral  na- 
ture. The  botanist,  for  example,  scans  a  plant  to 
discover  all  physical  facts  about  it ;  he  wishes  to 
know  of  what  parts  it  is  made  up ;  what  similari- 
ties there  are  between  these  parts  and  correspond- 
ing ones  in  other  plants;  what  is  the  function 
of  each  part;  what  changes  they  undergo  in  the 
growth  of  the  plant;  how  all  develop  from  the  time 
of  the  first  germination  of  the  plant  until,  having 
produced  the  fertile  seeds  of  other  plants,  it  dies. 
His  processes  are  purely  intellectual.  It  is  truths 
that  he  is  after,  that  is,  facts  and  laws  —  which  are 
only  sequences  between  facts.  But  for  the  man  of 
literary  temper  all  these  matters  have  only  second- 
ary interest.     He  rather  asks,  What  is  the  plant 


WHAT    IS    LITERATURE?  53 

for  ?  Its  different  parts  are  doubtless  so  adapted  to 
each  other  and  to  their  surroundings  as  to  secure 
its  growth  and  to  enable  it  to  reproduce  itself 
again  and  again  in  succeeding  generations  ;  but  what 
is  it  all  for  ?  And  he  finds  answer  to  his  question 
by  saying  that  the  plant  was  made  for  its  highest 
power  over  human  emotions,  i.e.  for  beauty.  The 
plant  was  made  for  flowers.  As  Raskin  says,  "In 
the  thought  of  nature  herself  there  is  in  a  plant 
nothing  else  but  flowers."  '  In  like  manner  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  in  his  charming  essay  on  Maurice  de 
Guerin,2  says  that  poetry  —  but  to  a  degree  it  is 
true  of  all  literature  —  "has  the  power  of  so  deal- 
ing with  things  as  to  awaken  a  wonderfully  new, 
full,  and  intimate  sense  of  them  and  of  our  relations 
with  them.  It  is  not  Linnaeus,  or  Cavendish,  or 
Cuvier,  who  gives  us  the  true  sense  of  earth,  or 
water,  or  animals,  or  plants,  who  seizes  their  secret 
for  us,  who  makes  us  participate  in  their  life  ;  it 
is  Shakspere,  with  his 

'"Daffodils 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty  ; ' 

it  is  Wordsworth,  with  his 

"  '  voice  .  .  .  heard 
In  spring-time  from  the  cuckoo-bird, 
Breaking  the  Bilenoe  of  the  seas 

Among  the  farihest   II. iblidefl  ; ' 

i  "  Furs  Clavigera,"  Letter  V. 
*  "  Essays  in  Criticism." 


54       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

it  is  Keats,  with  his 

"  '  moving  waters  at  their  priest-like  task 
Of  cold  ablution  round  Earth's  human  shores  ; ' 

it  is  Chateaubriand,  with  his  'ciine  indeterminee 
des  for§ts. ' " 

This  illustrates  well  enough  the  difference  be- 
tween the  attitude  of  the  man  of  science  and  that 
of  the  man  of  letters,  toward  all  things.  The  one 
studies  to  get  a  clear  intellectual  conception  of  the 
relation  of  things  to  each  other,  of  similarities  and 
sequences;  the  other  regards  the  significance  of 
things  for  our  moral  and  emotional  nature.  And 
the  expression  in  writing  of  the  one  form  of  activ- 
ity is  science  ;  of  the  other,  literature. 

It  is,  however,  to  be  understood  —  as  has  been 
already  said  —  that  many  books  primarily  scientific 
in  purpose  have  incidentally  emotional  interest  and 
so  literary  quality  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  all 
emotional  literature  must  have  a  basis  in  fact  and 
truth.  For  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  two 
tempers  which  we  have  termed  literary  and  scien- 
tific are  altogether  incompatible,  or  must  always 
work  separately.  On  the  contrary,  any  symmet- 
rical mental  development  requires  the  cultivation 
of  both.  But  in  any  given  individual  one  is  likely 
to  be  habitually  predominant.  Moreover,  while  the 
two  may  be  combined  and  work  together,  they  do 
not  mutually  support  and  increase  each  other.  The 
physicist's  sense  of  the  beauty  of  a  sunset  is  not 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  55 

diminished  by  his  knowledge  of  the  optical  laws 
it  illustrates ;  but  neither  is  it  increased.  In- 
deed, it  is  probable  that  any  high  degree  of  at- 
tention concentrated  upon  the  physical  laws  of  the 
phenomenon  would  necessitate  some  corresponding 
withdrawal  of  perception  from  its  beauty.  In  gen- 
eral, it  is  certain  that  cultivation  of  the  one  temper 
does  not  imply  growth,  jmri  passu,  in  the  other. 
So  far  is  this  from  true  that  in  forms  of  activity 
which  demand  constant  exercise  of  the  one,  while 
allowing  almost  entire  neglect  of  the  other,  we 
often  find  the  unused  temper  in  a  state  of  atrophy 
or  decay.  The  case  of  Mr.  Darwin  is  a  familiar 
instance  in  point.  Instances  of  an  opposite  and 
still  more  unfortunate  sort  may  be  frequently  seen 
in  persons  who  have  so  accustomed  themselves  to 
a  purely  emotional  view  of  life  that  they  have  lost 
the  power  of  vigorous  intellectual  activity  upon 
facts.  The  sentimentalist,  the  aesthete,  the  fanatic, 
are  proverbially  deformed  types  of  character.1 

1  I  have  not  thought  it  neeessary  to  enter  into  any  investiga- 
tion of  the  nature  or  genesis  of  emotion.    I  am  not  unaware 

that  the  explanation  of  the  essential  quality  of  literature  given 

in  this  chapter  may  he  objected  toon  the  ground  that  there  is 

DO  essential  eontrast  between  emotional  and  Intellectual  pro- 
ESmotion,  it  is  now  said,  is  a  function  of  consciousness 
accompanying,  In  greater  or  less  degree,  all  mental  acts.  Bays 
Mr.  II.  K.  Marshall  ("./Esthetic  Principles,"  p.  89),  "Pleasures 
ami  pains  are  qualities  either  of  which,  under  the  proper  con- 
ditions, may  belong  io  an\  element  of  consciousness,  and  one 

of  w  bid)  must  in  any  ease  belong  to  each  element."  The  amount 
and  quality  of  emotion  attending  any  mental  aet  will  he  deter- 
mined in  great  measure,  subjectively,  by  the  temperament  of  the 


56       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

The  essential  element  in  literature,  then,  is  the 
power  to  appeal  to  the  emotions.  But  this  is  not 
the  only  element  in  literature.  In  only  one  of  the 
fine  arts  does  this  power  seem  to  exist  by  itself, 
and,  so  to  speak,  constitute  the  art.  Music  is  the 
most  typical  of  the  arts  in  that  the  distinguishing 
element  of  all  art  is  here  found  in  isolation ;  for 
music  appeals  directly  to  the  emotions  without  the 
intervention  of  any  definite  intellectual  concep- 
tions whatever.  We  do  not  ask  what  it  means  to 
the  intellect ;  that  would,  in  most  cases,  be  absurd. 
We  cannot  describe  it  in  terms  of  fact  or  truth ;  if 
we  attempt  to  do  so,  we  find  that  we  have  missed 
the  music  altogether  and  described  something  else. 
As  Browning  makes  the  musician  say  in  a  very 
suggestive  poem :  — 

"  Each  tone  in  our  scale  in  itself  is  naught ; 
It  is  everywhere  in  the  world  —  loud,  soft,  and  all  is  said. 

person  quite  as  much  as  by  the  nature  of  the  action.  To  some 
persons  a  purely  intellectual  process,  e.g.  an  involved  algebraic 
demonstration,  may  give  most  decided  emotions  of  pleasure ;  a 
book  composed  of  such  demonstrations  to  him  would  then,  it  may 
be  urged,  be  literature. 

In  answer  to  which  objections  it  seems  sufficient  for  my  pur- 
pose to  say :  — 

1.  That  every  one  recognizes  an  inherent  difference  between 
thought  aud  emotion. 

2.  That  emotion  is  in  no  sense  a  necessary  accompaniment  of 
intellectual  processes ;  the  mathematician  surely  may  go  through 
his  demonstration  as  correctly  without  either  pleasure  or  pain. 

3.  If  pure  intellection  were  normally  accompanied  by  any 
marked  degree  of  pleasurable  emotion,  it  would  be  proper  ma- 
terial for  literature ;  but  it  is  not.  Most  men  do  not  necessarily 
associate  emotion  with  purely  intellectual  processes. 


WHAT  IS   LITERATURE?  57 

Give  it  to  me  !     I  mix  it  with  two  in  my  thought, 
And  there  !     Ye  have  heard  and  seen  ! 
Consider,  and  bow  the  head  !  " 

Doubtless  a  part  of  the  effect  of  music  may  be 
explained  by  its  power  of  vague  suggestion.  It 
seems  to  hint  indefinite,  half-formed  intellectual 
conceptions  which  are  bound  up  with  all  our  feel- 
ings, and  to  recall  in  a  dreamy  way  former  expe- 
riences which  are  associated  with  pleasurable 
emotion.  And  the  effect  of  music  may  perhaps 
be  heightened  by  making  these  suggestions  more 
definite,  as  when  the  musician  gives  us  what  are 
called  tone-pictures,  or  when  music  is  married  to 
poetry  in  song.  Yet  the  primary  appeal  of  the 
music  seems  to  be  to  the  feelings,  not  to  any  asso- 
ciated experience  or  sentiment.  It  is  probable, 
too,  that  for  most  persons  the  effects  of  music  are 
keenest  as  well  as  purest  when  there  is  no  attempt 
to  associate  it  with  anything  else,  as  in  the  case 
of  pure  instrumental  tone  in  the  orchestra,  or  of 
the  human  voice  without  words  or  with  words 
in  ;m  unknown  tongue.  However  this  may  be, 
the  power  of  music  over  the  emotions  would  seem 
to  be  simple  and  ultimate,  not  annlyzable,  and 
haying  no  necessary  connection  with  intellectual 
processes  of  any  kind.  All  we  can  say  is  thai 
music  is  the  language  by  which  the  emotions  mosl 
naturally  express  themselves,  and  bo  awakens  by 
sympathy  the  emotions  of  the  listener.  The  truth 
is  that  all  the    spontaneous    expressions     of    emo- 


58       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

tion,  unless  the  emotion  be  so  excessive  as  to  pass 
beyond  all  control,  are  of  the  nature  of  music. 
Laughter  and  weeping,  calling,  shouting,  the  tones 
of  excited  conversation  —  they  all  show  those  ele- 
ments of  rhythm  and  melody  which  are  the  es- 
sence of  music.  And,  as  might  be  expected,  the 
emotional  effects  of  music  are  keener  than  those 
of  any  other  art  —  far  keener;  but  they  are  by 
consequence  more  transient,  and,  having  no  con- 
nection with  intellectual  conceptions,  they  have 
not  that  influence  upon  our  rational  and  moral  life 
which  the  other  arts  exert.  Music  is  sometimes 
called  the  "  divine  art " ;  in  fact  it  is  the  most  un- 
moral of  all  the  arts,  i.e.  the  most  entirely  discon- 
nected from  all  distinctively  ethical  influences. 

But  to  return  to  our  first  statement,  —  in  this 
power  to  arouse  the  feelings  directly  music  seems 
to  stand  alone.  Even  the  arts  of  form  and  color, 
sculpture  and  painting,  cannot  do  this.  They  must 
present  to  our  vision  concrete  objects  of  beauty, 
recognized  by  our  intelligence  and  associated  with 
pleasing  emotions  in  our  own  experience.  The 
statue,  the  painting,  mean  something,  we  say,  in  a 
sense  that  music  does  not.  And  literature,  pre- 
eminently, must  work  through  definite  intellectual 
conceptions.  Its  appeal  to  the  emotions  must  be 
indirect.  That  appeal  is  usually  made,  much  as 
in  the  allied  arts  of  sculpture  and  painting,  by 
presenting  to  contemplation  concrete  objects  or 
persons,   or   particular   actions.      The   faculty   by 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  59 

which  this  is  clone  we  call  imagination.  As  a 
condition  of  emotion,  it  is  an  important  element 
in  all  literature ;  most  important,  of  course,  in  the 
more  highly  emotional  forms  of  literature. 

Furthermore,  in  any  attempt  to  appreciate  or 
estimate  a  work  of  literature  we  have  always  to 
consider  a  distinctly  intellectual  element,  the  truth 
or  fact  which  must  serve  as  a  basis  of  all  writing. 
In  some  forms  of  literature,  as  we  have  seen,  this 
element  constitutes  the  purpose  of  the  book  and 
hence  mainly  determines  its  worth.  We  do  not 
value  a  history  primarily  for  its  vivacity,  pictu- 
resqueness,  pathos,  essential  though  these  may  be 
to  literary  quality ;  we  value  the  history  primarily 
for  its  accuracy,  justice  of  view,  wisdom,  that  is, 
for  its  truth.  Even  in  our  estimate  of  any  of  the 
more  typical  forms  of  literature,  such  as  poetry,  we 
shall  always  need  to  consider  the  facts  or  truths 
underlying  the  emotion.  For  we  shall  find  that 
without  adequate  intellectual  basis  strong  emotion 
passes  into  anger,  rant,  or  gush ;  quick  emotion,  into 
sentimentality  or  irritability  ;  that  falsehood  or  mis- 
taken truth  leads  ultimately  to  unhealthy  emotion; 
and  that  there  can  be  no  really  profound  emotion 
without  something  great  in  the    nderlying  ideas. 

Lastly,  in  our  critical  estimate  of   any   work   of 

literature    we    must    always    pay    attention    to    its 

Form.      Emotion,  imagination,   and   thoughl    must 

all  find  expression   through   the   medium   of  lan- 

The    term    Form    is    used    to    include    all 


60       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY  CRITICISM 

consideration  of  this  expression  as  distinguished 
from  the  substance  expressed,  the  manner  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  matter  of  writing.  As  thus 
defined,  Form  is  evidently  not  an  end  in  itself, 
but  a  means  ;  yet  it  is  so  important  as  to  demand 
separate  consideration.  For  the  power  of  making 
permanent  appeal  to  the  emotions,  which  we  have 
concluded  to  be  the  essential  quality  of  literature, 
seems  to  depend,  to  some  extent,  always,  and  in 
many  cases  almost  entirely,  upon  the  way  in  which 
the  thought  or  fact  is  put.  Every  one  knows  that 
truths  worn  into  commonplaces  get  a  new  and 
abiding  power  over  our  feelings  simply  from  the 
form  of  words  into  which  some  one  has  had  the 
skill  or  the  fortune  to  cast  them. 

"  0  wad  some  Power  the  giftie  gie  us 
To  see  oursels  as  others  see  us  ! " 

We  may  say  there  is  no  meaning  added  to  such  a 
thought  by  the  way  it  is  put ;  but  there  is  certainly 
new  power  added  to  it.  Now  this  mastery  of  his 
medium  of  expression,  in  literature  as  in  every 
other  art,  is  one  of  the  surest  marks  of  power  in 
the  artist.  It  always  implies  native  endowment 
and  usually  implies  nice  training;  and  it  is  a  le- 
gitimate object  of  admiration.  The  true  critic 
knows  how  to  appreciate  such  technical  skill  in 
handling ;  he  knows  that  beauties  do  not  come 
by  accident,  and  that  not  even  genius  is  exempt 
from  the  toil  of  workmanship;  and  thus  with  his 
sympathetic    appreciation    of   the  work    he  criti- 


WHAT   IS   LITERATURE?  61 

cises  there  is  blended  an  artistic  admiration  of  its 
Form. 

In  summary,  then,  we  find  that  in  all  critical  ex- 
amination of  literature  we  must  notice  the  follow- 
ing elements:  — 

1.  Emotion,  which,  if  our  analysis  be  correct,  is 
the  characteristic  and  distinguishing  element  of 
literature.  It  is  only  in  the  more  typical  forms 
of  literature,  however,  that  it  is  the  end  for  which 
the  work  is  written  ;  in  other  cases  it  is  incidental 
or  a  means  to  some  further  end. 

2.  Imagination,  without  which  it  is  impossible 
in  most  instances  to  awaken  emotion. 

3.  Thought,  which  must  be  the  basis  of  all 
forms  of  art,  except  music.  In  all  didactic  and 
persuasive  varieties  of  literature  this  is  the  most 
important  element,  as  it  furnishes  the  purpose  for 
which  the  book  is  written. 

4.  Form,  which  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  the 
means  by  which  all  thought  and  feeling  find  ex- 
pression, and  is  so  important  as  to  deserve  separate 
attention. 

In  the  following  chapters  we  shall  discuss  these 
elements  in  bhe  order  named.  We  should  remem- 
ber, however,  that  while  we  may  consider  them 
separately,  the  total  impression  of  a  work  of  lit- 
erature   is    always    a    composite    of    all    four,    and 

that,  neither  element   can   be  adequately   appreci- 
ated without  recognizing  the  concurrent  influence 

Of  the  other  three. 


CHAPTER  THIRD 

The  Emotional  Element  in  Literature 

To  prevent  any  possible  confusion,  it  may  be 
well  to  ask,  before  entering  upon  the  discussion 
of  the  emotional  element  in  literature,  Whose  emo- 
tions are  referred  to  ?  Eor  in  all  discussion  of  lit- 
erary effects  there  are  three  different  parties  of 
whom  emotion  may  be  predicated,  and  we  some- 
times get  into  perplexities  by  confusing  the  three. 
We  may  mean  the  emotion  of  the  reader,  or  the 
emotion  of  the  writer,  or  the  emotion  exhibited 
by  the  imaginary  persons  created  by  the  writer. 
When  we  speak  of  emotional  values  in  Hamlet, 
do  we  mean  the  emotion  we  feel  in  reading  the 
play,  or  that  which  Shakspere  felt  in  creating 
it,  or  that  exhibited  by  Hamlet,  Ophelia,  or  the 
King  ?  In  common  conversation  it  is  probable  that 
we  frequently  mean  all  three.  For  instance,  when 
we  say  that  emotion  must  be  "  genuine,"  we  usually 
are  thinking  that  the  writer  must  really  feel  him- 
self what  he  pretends  to  feel ;  when  we  say  that 
a  play  or  novel  has  many  powerful  situations,  we 
oftenest  have  in  mind  the  exhibition  of  powerful 
emotions  by  the  characters ;  and  when  we  speak  of 
a  poem  or  passage  as  thrilling,  or  pathetic,  or  in- 
62 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     63 

spiling,  we  refer  to  its  effect  on  our  own  emotions. 
And  to  some  extent  each  of  the  three  meanings 
does  imply  the  other  two;  since  it  is  doubtful 
whether  an  author  can  exhibit  powerful  emotion 
in  the  characters  of  his  creation  without  some 
feeling  of  that  emotion  himself ;  and,  similarly,  the 
only  sure  way  for  the  author  to  excite  emotion 
in  the  reader  is  to  exhibit  it  in  himself  or  in  the 
imaginary  personages  of  his  creating.  But  though 
the  word  is  often  used  in  this  loose  way,  it  will 
be  confined  in  this  discussion,  so  far  as  possible, 
to  one  meaning,  —  the  emotion  of  the  reader;  by 
the  phrase,  emotional  element  in  literature,  then, 
we  will  understand  the  power  of  literature  to 
awaken  emotion  in  us  who  read. 

We  may  ask,  first,  What  are  the  emotions  to 
which  literature  makes  appeal  ?  Now  here  we 
need  not  fall  into  the  folly  of  attempting  to  enu- 
merate or  even  to  classify  the  literary  emotions ; 
they  are  too  various  and  intricate  for  that.  We 
may  say,  however,  that  there  are  two  classes  of 
emotions  —  and  probably  only  two  —  that  are  ex- 
cluded from  the  range  of  legitimate  literary  effects. 

1.  Literature  cannot  appeal  to  the  adfregarding 
c  mot  ions.  By  this  term  is  meant  all  such  emotions 
as  prompt  us  to  attain  an  object  for  our  personal 
usr,  aa  economy  or  covetousness ;  or  that  prompt 
us  to  escape  a  danger  that  menaces  our  personal 
safety,    a.s    terror;     or    that     prompt    us    to    return 

either  an  injury  or  a  benefit  rendered  to  us  per* 


64       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

sonally,  as  revenge  on  the  one  hand,  or  gratitude 
on  the  other.  The  contemplation  of  these  emo- 
tions in  others  may  awaken  in  us  feeling  that 
has  literary  quality,  but  they  themselves,  although 
often  pleasurable  and  commendable,  are  not  lit- 
erary emotions.  Gratitude  to  a  man  for  having 
secured  me  a  position  or  having  paid  me  money 
is  not  a  literary  emotion;  but  admiration  for  the 
honesty  that  scrupulously  pays  its  debts  or  for  the 
benevolence  that  does  a  kind  deed,  may  well  be. 
The  emotion  in  the  one  case  is  self-regarding,  per- 
sonal ;  in  the  other  it  is  universal.  Literary  emo- 
tions must  always  be  of  the  latter  sort. 

2.  Painful  emotions  are  never  a  proper  object  of 
literary  appeal.  This  condition  may  perhaps  seem 
too  obvious  to  need  statement,  but  it  excludes  a 
whole  class  of  powerful  emotions,  —  disgust,  con- 
tempt, envy,  anger  (not  indignation,  which  is  a 
very  different  passion),  jealousy,  and  the  like. 
These  are  excluded  from  literary  effects  because 
they  are  painful ;  and  in  a  healthy  mental  condi- 
tion we  never  crave  painful  feeling.  There  are, 
however,  some  morbid  mental  conditions  for  which 
emotions  that  to  a  normal  temperament  would  be 
distasteful,  seem  to  have  a  kind  of  fascination. 
This  craving  for  emotion  that  a  healthy  taste 
would  find  painful  or  disgusting  —  a  craving  that 
finds  a  parallel  in  certain  disordered  physical  appe- 
tites—  may  proceed,  sometimes  from  sensibilities 
jaded    and    overstimulated   by    excess,    sometimes 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     65 

from  a  cheerless  philosophy  and  a  dreary,  pessi- 
mistic view  of  the  facts  of  life.  But  whatever  its 
cause  and  wherever  it  is  found,  whether  in  the  in- 
dividual or  in  society,  it  is  always  a  symptom  of 
disease;  and  the  disposition  to  pander  to  it  is  a 
sure  proof  of  literary  decline.  The  last  decades 
of  the  nineteenth  century  have  given  us  consider- 
able writing  of  this  sort,  especially  in  fiction.  But 
no  realistic  vividness  of  imagination,  no  marvellous 
felicity  of  form,  can  ever  make  good  literature  out 
of  pictures  of  essential  vulgarity  of  soul,  of  nerve- 
less self-abandonment  to  appetite  or  circumstance, 
of  squalid  suffering,  aimless,  ignoble,  unredeemed. 
Such  pictures  can  awaken  in  a  healthy  mind  only 
feelings  of  contempt,  or  loathing,  or  pain. 

Yet  the  depiction  of  painful  emotions  and  ex- 
periences may  be,  of  course,  a  fruitful  source  of 
the  highest  literary  effect.  Here  we  touch  the 
problem  of  all  pathos  and  tragedy.  For  it  is  a 
familiar  fact  of  human  nature  that  the  contempla- 
tion of  pain  in  others  does  not  of  necessity  pro- 
duce painful  feeling  in  us.  Is  there  any  agony 
more  awful  than  that  of  Othello  or  of  Lear,  any 
pathos  more  pitiful  than  that  of  Ophelia  or  Cor- 
delia? Yet  we  read  their  story  with  emotions 
that  we  call  pleasurable.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  huge 
group  of  noble  and  pleasurable  emotions  that  can 
be  evoked  in  any  high  degree  only  by  the  spectacle 
of  pain  in  some  form.  Thus  undeserved  pain  or 
sorrow  always  produces  in  the  mind  that  content 
r 


66       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

plates  it  pity.  And  pity  is  pleasurable  on  two 
conditions :  first,  if  we  may  feel  that  the  pity  or 
the  effort  prompted  by  it  actually  relieves  the 
pain  we  pity ;  when  the  pity  is  obviously  unavail- 
ing, it  passes  into  pain.  Thus  it  is  a  pain  to  pity 
the  sufferings  of  a  friend  dying  of  an  incurable 
disease,  or  enduring  the  torture  of  a  surgical  opera- 
tion; but  it  is  not  a  pain  to  pity  the  grief  of  a 
friend  at  undeserved  abuse  or  calumny  when  our 
pity  lightens  the  burden  the  friend  has  to  bear. 
And,  second,  pity  is  pleasurable  when  the  sorrows 
pitied  are  known  to  be  imaginary,  as  they  are  in 
poetry  and  fiction,  or  are  overpast  as  they  are  in 
biography  and  history.  Here  we  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  benevolent  emotion  without  any  cost 
in  active  effort,  and  without  the  element  of  pain 
which  always  attends  the  knowledge  of  real  sor- 
row. Similarly  admiration,  in  any  energetic  form, 
always  implies  the  endurance  of  suffering;  indig- 
nation, the  infliction  of  suffering.  For  the  heroic 
virtues,  courage,  endurance,  devotion,  magnanimity, 
superiority  of  soul  to  circumstance,  can  only  be 
proved  by  the  test  of  pain;  and  it  is  really  the 
exhibition  of  these  virtues,  and  not  the  mere  pain, 
which  calls  out  the  literary  emotions.  It  is  joy 
and  strength  to  know  that  human  resolve  can 
laugh  at  terrors  and  that  human  love  is  stronger 
than  death.  Or,  again,  sometimes  it  is  the  sub- 
lime spectacle  of  the  vindication  of  outraged  moral 
law,  assent  to  which  by  us  gives  a  certain  solemn 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE    G7 

pleasure.  A  great  tragedy  of  Shakspere,  for  ex- 
ample, appeals  to  all  these  emotions  together, — 
pity,  admiration,  indignation,  grave  moral  assent. 
More  generally  still,  there  seems  to  be  an  ultimate 
pleasure  in  all  exercise  of  sympathy,  and  that  even 
when  the  ground  of  sympathy  is  a  painful  expe- 
rience. Hence  the  charm  of  much  of  the  literature 
of  pathos  and  of  doubt.  The  poetry  of  one  of 
the  most  finished  of  modern  English  poets  is,  for 
the  most  part,  only  the  expression  of  a  calm, 
stoical,  but  absolute,  resignation  of  most  of  the 
common  grounds  of  religious  faith  and  hope;  yet 
thousands  of  readers  have  unquestionably  found 
in  it  a  deep,  if  half-mournful,  satisfaction.  For 
merely  to  know  that  another  thinks  and  feels  as 
I  do,  that  he  is  truly  uttering  my  experience  with 
a  beauty  and  force  that  I  would  fain  command  but 
cannot, — this  of  itself  is  sufficient  to  warm  the 
heart  into  a  sense  of  human  brotherhood  and  spirit- 
ual companionship.  For  like  causes,  all  phases  of 
experience,  however  painful  or  mournful,  that  are 
universal  and  form  a  part  of  the  common  human 
lot,  evoke  in  thought  a  not  onpleasing  sympathy. 
Examples  of  this  may  be  Been  in  the  universal 
contrast  between  the  aspirations  of  youth  and  the 
attainments  of  age — "at  jeunesse  savait,  ai  ri<il- 
/<  x.sv  pouvaitl" — -the  inevitable  Blackening  <>t"  the 
pulse  of  life,  the  decay  of  imagination  or  passion 
with  the  passing  years,  and   the  supreme  event 

which   levels  all  distinctions  and   brings  the  high- 


68       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

est  and  the  humblest  to  the  solemn  kinship  of 
the  grave.  But  while  in  such  ways  as  these 
human  suffering  may  furnish  the  highest  literary 
motives,  we  may  lay  it  down  as  a  general  rule 
that  good  literature  never  exhibits  pain  in  a 
merely  wanton  and  aimless  way;  but  only  in 
order  to  call  out  some  emotion  that  is  healthy 
and  —  in  the  wide  sense  in  which  we  have  ex- 
plained the  word  —  pleasurable. 

If,  however,  we  exclude  these  two  classes  of 
emotion,  the  self-regarding  and  the  painful,  the 
entire  range  of  human  feeling  is  open  to  literary 
appeal.  If  a  book  have  permanent  power  to  appeal 
to  any  other  emotion,  that  book  is,  ipso  facto, 
literature.  Any  classification  of  the  various  liter- 
ary emotions  would  be  very  difficult,  and  if  possible 
practically  useless.  There  is  probably  no  attempt 
at  such  classification  more  nearly  successful  than 
Ru skin's.  In  the  third  volume  of  Modern  Painters 
he  gives  a  definition  of  poetry  that  might  serve, 
with  slight  modification,  as  a  definition  of  all  litera- 
ture. "  Poetry,"  he  says,  "  is  the  suggestion  by  the 
imagination  of  noble  grounds  for  noble  emotions ;  " 
and  he  then  proceeds  to  enumerate  the  "noble  emo- 
tions." These  are,  according  to  Ruskin,  "  on  the  one 
side,  Love,  Veneration,  Admiration,  and  Joy ;  and 
on  the  other,  their  opposites,  Hate,  Indignation, 
Horror,  and  Grief."  These,  he  says,  in  their  com- 
bination constitute  "poetic  feeling."  Ruskin  is 
defining  poetry,  and  would  not  maintain,  perhaps, 


THE   EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     69 

that  all  literature  is  restricted  to  these  emotions ; 
but  it  seeuis  very  doubtful  whether  even  all  cases 
of  "  poetic  feeling  "  can  be  shown  to  be  analyzable 
into  these  few  elements,  unless,  indeed,  some  of 
them  (as  joy,  for  example)  be  given  a  meaning 
wide  and  vague  enough  to  cover  almost  all  pleas- 
urable feeling.  There  certainly  is  poetic  feeling 
in  the  following  passage;  yet  with  which  of  those 
named  by  Ruskin  can  it  be  classed,  or  with  what 
combination  of  them  ? 

"It  is  ten  o'clock  at  night.  A  strange  and 
mystic  moonlight,  with  a  fresh  breeze  and  a  sky 
crossed  by  a  few  wandering  clouds,  makes  our 
terrace  delightful.  These  pale  and  gentle  rays 
shed  from  the  zenith  a  subdued  and  penetrat- 
ing peace  :  it  is  like  the  calm  joy  or  the  pensive 
smile  of  experience,  combined  with  a  certain  stoic 
strength.  The  stars  shine,  the  leaves  tremble  in 
the  silver  light.  Not  a  sound  in  all  the  landscape ; 
great  golfs  of  shadow  under  the  green  alleys  and 
at  the  corners  of  the  steps.  Everything  is  secret, 
solemn,  mysterious.  0  night  hours,  hours  of  si- 
lence and  solitude  !  —  with  you  are  grace  and  mel- 
ancholy ;  you  sadden  and  you  console." l 

Bere  are,  doubtless,  love,  admiration,  veneration, 
joy,  and  something  of  grief;  yet  the  dominant  emo- 
tion sct'ins  :i  little  different  from  either  of  these,  or 
any  combination  of  them.     It  is  rather  peace  — 

1  Amii'l's  ".loin mil,"  Beptembei  7,  1851 ;  traus.  by  Mrs.  Hum- 
phry   Ward. 


70       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

and  that  is  quite  different  from  joy.  Yet,  however 
you  name  it,  it  is  a  type  of  emotion  which  forms 
one  of  the  most  common  and  effective  motives  in 
poetry.  The  reader  may  recall  a  passage  from  one 
of  the  most  exquisite  poems  of  this  century  — 
Matthew  Arnold's  Resignation  —  which  explicitly 
affirms  that  the  poet  feels  the  secret  of  the  world 

to  be 

"  not  joy,  but  peace." 

Certainly  if  we  sweep  our  thought  over  the  wide 
field  of  human  nature  we  must  conclude  that  it  is 
impossible  to  include  all  literary  effects,  even  of 
poetry,  within  the  four  pairs  of  contrasted  emo- 
tions named  by  Ruskin.  Aspiration  and  content, 
the  sense  of  effort  and  the  sense  of  rest,  humor, 
the  sense  of  beauty  pure  and  simple, — these  are 
emotions  that  do  not  seem,  by  any  strict  definition, 
to  come  within  his  list.  Then  there  are  the  emo- 
tions on  which  the  charm  of  literary  form  chiefly 
depends,  —  the  musical  sense,  and  the  pleasure  of 
repeated  surprise  given  us  by  versification  and 
especially  by  rhyme  ;  still  different  is  the  sense 
of  pleasure  which  we  feel  at  successful  imitation 
—  which  certainly  has  much  to  do  with  art  —  a 
quality  to  which  in  literature  we  give  such  names 
as  "  fidelity,"  "  verisimilitude,"  "  truth  to  nature." 
This  last  is  the  main  source  of  our  liking  for  what 
we  call  realism  in  all  art  —  of  which  more  here- 
after. 

Nor  shall  we  find  it  easy  to  subsume  all  these 


THE    EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     71 

feelings  under  some  more  general  emotion  or  sen- 
sibility into  which  they  may  all  be  resolved.  One 
attempt  to  do  this,  however,  is  worthy  of  notice. 
It  is  often  said  that  literature  —  and  still  oftener 
said  that  poetry  —  appeals  to  the  sense  of  beauty; 
and  this  term  beauty,  or  the  sense  of  beauty,  is 
often  used  as  if  it  comprehended  all  the  feelings 
which  literature  can  touch.  The  word  is  certainly 
applied  to  a  very  wide  variety  of  things  that  agree 
in  giving  pleasure.  We  speak,  not  inaccurately, 
of  a  beautiful  landscape,  a  beautiful  woman,  a 
beautiful  sonata,  a  beautiful  poem,  a  beautiful 
thought,  a  beautiful  action.  In  one  of  the  most 
recent  and  thoughtful  treatises  upon  /Esthetics, 
beauty  is  defined  broadly  as  "pleasure  objecti- 
fied." "Or,  in  less  technical  language,  Beauty  is 
pleasure  regarded  as  the  quality  of  a  thing."  "  It 
depends  upon  the  degree  of  objectivity  my  feel- 
ing has  attained  at  the  moment  whether  I  say  'It 
pleases  me,'  or,  'It  is  beautiful.'  If  I  am  self- 
conscious  and  critical  I  shall  probably  use  the 
one  phrase;  if  I  am  impulsive  and  susceptible, 
the  other."1  Thus  broadly  defined,  beauty  will 
certainly  include  all  literary  emotion;  but  it  will 
include  much  more.  By  this  definition,  it  should 
certainly  Beem  that  to  a  man  of  healthy  appetite 

his  dinner  must  always  he  a  thing  of  beaut  v. 
Ordinary  usage  instinctively  gives  a  somewhat 
narrower  meaning  than   this   to  the  word. 

1  Sautayana,  "  The  Scuso  of  Beauty,"  pp.  i;i,  :,i. 


72       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

"I  am  warned  by  the  ill  example  of  many  phi- 
losophers," says  Emerson,  "not  to  attempt  any 
definition  of  beauty."  Fortunately  no  such  at- 
tempt at  philosophic  definition  is  necessary  here: 
it  is  needful  only  to  remark  that  the  word,  as  de- 
fined by  general  but  careful  usage,  designates  the 
power  to  stir  a  class  of  emotions  which,  though 
very  wide,  is  far  from  including  the  whole  range 
of  feeling  to  which  literature  appeals.  A  mo- 
ment's reflection  would  seem  to  suggest  that  the 
simplest,  and  in  the  case  of  the  individual,  the 
original  form  of  this  emotion  is  that  which  arises 
from  objects  of  sight  or  hearing,  especially  the 
former.  As  I  write  these  lines  I  am  sitting  by  a 
window  which  commands  a  wide  prospect.  In  the 
middle  distance  is  a  tree,  the  first  object  that  my 
eye  falls  upon  as  I  look  up  from  my  paper.  Its 
summer  verdure  has  been  changed  to  gorgeous 
hues  of  copper  and  gold.  The  color  is  pleasing 
—  I  take  joy  to  look  at  it.  It  is  made  more  pleas- 
ing by  all  varieties  of  tone,  produced  partly  by  the 
different  colors  of  the  leaves,  partly  by  the  varia- 
tion in  density  of  the  foliage.  Moreover,  the 
tree  has  a  form  that  pleases.  I  say  it  is  sym- 
metrical but  not  rigid  or  angular.  And  it  adds  to 
the  charms  of  color  and  form  the  charm  of  motion, 
or  changing  form.  The  wind  is  stirring  among  its 
leaves,  and  there  is  at  once  a  general  unity  of 
movement  as  the  gentle  westerly  breeze  sways 
the  whole  tree  slowly  to  one   side,  and  infinite 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     73 

diversity  of  movement  among  its  myriad  leaves 
—  and  every  movement,  I  say,  is  graceful.  The 
tree  I  pronounce  a  beautiful  thing.  Its  color  and 
form  perceived  together  produce  in  me  a  peculiar 
emotion  which  seems  to  me  simple  and  ultimate. 
Whatever  be  the  processes  of  evolution  by  which 
this  perception  has  become  possible,  whatever  ex- 
planation of  it  may  be  found  in  physiological 
adaptations,  I  am  not  conscious  of  any  need  of 
explanation  or  analysis.  Here  I  seem  to  have  the 
emotion  of  beauty  in  its  simplest  and  most 
isolated  form,  having  no  connection  with  moral 
quality,  conduct,  or  human  action  in  any  way. 
But  now  I  lift  my  eyes  from  the  tree  and  let 
my  vision  take  in  the  whole  broad-lying  landscape 
visible  from  my  window.  Here  is  multiplicity 
of  details  which,  nevertheless,  I  can  perceive  as  a 
whole  —  the  long,  high  horizon  line,  rising  just  in 
front  of  me  into  the  broadly  rounded  solidity  of 
a  mountain;  the  russet  clad  slopes  of  the  eastern 
hills  that  border  a  river;  the  broad  expanse  of  the 
river,  lying  like  a  quiet  lake,  bluer  by  far  than 
the  sky  overhead;  sloping  fields,  dotted  here  and 
there  with  farmhouses;  and  below  and  in  front 
the  roofs  of  the  city  among  the  fast  thinning  foli- 
age of  the  trees.  And  as  1  look,  again  I  exclaim. 
Beautiful  I  Bui  the  emotion  I  now  have,  if  com- 
pared with  that   I   felt  when  looking  at  the  tree, 

I  notice  is  not  only  deeper  but  much  more  com- 
plex.    The  delight    of  color  and   form  and   motion 


74       PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

is  in  it;  but  there  is  much  more.  The  imagina- 
tion has  plainly  entered;  and  the  office  of  the 
imagination  (as  we  shall  see  later)  is  to  multiply 
pleasurable  suggestions.  Other  experiences  are 
vaguely  called  up.  The  mountain  yonder  reminds 
me  of  the  one  I  saw  in  front  of  Wordsworth's 
house,  or  of  Soracte  that  Horace  sings;  it  calls 
halfway  back  to  memory  a  thousand  things  I 
have  read  or  heard  of  mountains,  evoking  a  throng 
of  vague  but  pleasing  reminiscences.  Moreover, 
and  more  important,  I  am  conscious  that  it  has 
some  power  akin  to  moral  suggestion,  a  hint  of 
repose,  calm  strength,  restful  power.  The  river 
seems  to  mean  peace.  The  scattered  houses  dot- 
ting the  distant  hillside,  with  here  and  there  a 
wreath  of  curling  smoke,  suggest  home-life  and 
love  and  quiet.  Thus  a  myriad  suggestions  and 
half-formed  memories  are  blended  in  my  emotion 
now,  yet  the  total  effect  I  call  beautiful. 

Such  a  simple  example  may  serve  to  show  that 
the  phrase,  "the  emotion  of  the  beautiful,"  is 
most  naturally  applied  to  a  type  of  feeling  which 
in  its  simplest  and  original  form  is  excited  imme- 
diately by  agreeable  objects  of  sight  and  hearing; 
but  that  in  its  higher  forms  this  simple  feeling 
is  combined  with  manifold  other  pleasurable  feel- 
ings suggested  by  the  agreeable  object  or  asso- 
ciated with  it.  This  suggestive  power  of  external 
objects  depends  upon  the  fact  that  there  are  a 
host  of  unmistakable  analogies  between  material 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     75 

and  spiritual  things.  Quiet,  for  instance,  is  both 
a  mental  and  a  physical  state;  and  whatever 
physical  thing  is  manifestly  steadfast  and  im- 
movable may  suggest,  and  hence  inspire,  calm- 
ness and  repose  of  spirit.  The  mountain  does,  as 
Wordsworth  says, — 

"  send  its  own  deep  quiet 
To  restore  our  souls." 

The  emotion  derived  from  observing  a  deep, 
slow-flowing  river  and  the  emotion  derived  from 
contemplating  a  calm,  well-directed  life  are  not 
identical,  but  they  are  analogous ;  and  the  one 
suggests  the  other.  We  learn  first  to  call  the 
river  beautiful,  and  then  we  come  to  call  the  life 
beautiful.  And  thus,  while  the  primary  and  sim- 
plest form  of  the  feeling  of  beauty  is  doubtless  that 
excited  directly  by  physical  objects,  we  instinc- 
tively extend  the  use  of  the  word  beautiful  to  a 
large  and  not  very  clearly  defined  class  of  things 
which  awaken  emotions  clearly  analogous  to  those 
ol  physical  beauty.  On  the  other  hand,  our  sense 
of  the  beauty  ft'  all  material  things  is  very  much 
increased  by  their  power  to  suggest  moral  simi- 
larities. The  mountain  seems  far  more  beautiful 
to  us  the  liniment-  it  reminds  us  of  quiet  and 
strength,  the  river  more  lovely  when  we  think  of 
it  as  meaning  peace,    one  notable  aesthetic  theory, 

Buskin's,  goes  so  far  as  t<>  explain  the  eff.vt  of 
beauty   in   this   way   entirely,  as  a  kind  of  typical 


76       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

language  whereby  spiritual  qualities  are  expressed 
in  sensible  forms.  This  theory  is  open  to  the 
fatal  objection  that  it  explains  the  simple  and 
ultimate  feeling  by  the  complex  and  derivative; 
yet  undeniably  all  the  higher  and  more  developed 
forms  of  the  sense  of  beauty  are  made  up  largely 
of  moral  elements. 

But  without  attempting  further  the  difficult 
task  of  stating  with  precision  the  characteristics 
of  those  objects  we  call  beautiful  or  of  the  emo- 
tions they  awaken,  we  may  confidently  affirm  that 
it  is  impossible  to  resolve  the  multitude  of  feelings 
that  literature  may  use,  into  forms  of  the  sense  of 
beauty,  without  arbitrarily  giving  to  the  phrase 
a  meaning  far  wider  than  the  most  careful  usage 
will  warrant. 

Perhaps  a  deeper  and  broader,  if  somewhat 
more  indefinite,  characterization  of  the  literary 
emotions  may  be  found  in  the  statement  that 
they  are  all  forms  of  our  sympathy  with  life. 
Whatever  life  is,  to  our  knowledge  it  is  the  sum 
of  our  powers  as  we  know  them  in  action.  When 
they  act  without  weakness  or  hindrance,  we  call 
that  pleasure;  the  more  of  them  act,  and  the 
more  easily  they  act,  the  more  life  we  actually 
seem  to  have,  —  and  the  more  life,  the  more  pleas- 
ure. Whatever  enhances  our  sense  of  life  gives 
us  pleasure;  whatever  seems  to  diminish  or 
threaten  it,  gives  us  pain.  Now  possibly  the 
various  sources  and  occasions  of  literary  or  artistic 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     77 

feeling  may  find  an  ultimate  ground  of  agree- 
ment in  that  they  all  have  the  power  by  some 
sort  of  sympathy  to  stimulate  and  enhance  this 
sense  of  life.  For  example,  our  admiration  for 
power  is  a  kind  of  feeling  that  we  too  have  a 
sympathetic,  at  least  an  imaginative,  share  in  the 
power  we  admire.  Power  of  any  sort  is,  there- 
fore, always  an  object  of  admiration  unless  it 
limits  or  diminishes  our  safety,  when  our  admira- 
tion changes  to  fear.  So  the  sense  of  beauty,  dis- 
cussed on  a  previous  page,  seems  always  to  imply 
in  some  way  a  new  and  thrilling  sense  of  conscious 
life  —  a  "vital  feeling  of  delight."  Love  and  joy 
in  all  their  forms  are  still  more  evidently  emotions 
that  quicken  our  activities  and  enlarge  our  sense 
of  life.  Our  deepest  moral  emotions,  also,  as  of 
justice,  veneration,  and  religious  aspiration,  bear 
v,  itiifss  to  our  unconquerable  feeling  of  a  life 
superior  to  physical  relations,  that  imposes  law 
upon  all  actions  but  will  not  itself  be  limited  or 
confined.  And  those  vague,  indefinable  emotions, 
which  are  often,  however,  most  intense,  as  on 
hearing  music,  on  seeing  a  landscape  at  some 
peculiar  moment,  on  Beeing  men  and  women  in  a 
throng  or  in  any  such  circumstances  as  to  thrust 
the  conception  of  humanity  forcibly  upon  us  — 
Boeing  a  mother  suckle  her  infant  in  a  grave- 
yard, for  instance,  to  take  :i  picture  from  a  French 

writer  —  any  of  those  states  of  feeling  which  seem 

t"    I"'    made    up    largely   of    dim,    indeterminate 


78       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

desire  after  something  higher,  purer,  sweeter; 
states  of  feeling  which  have  always  some  tinge 
of  sadness  in  them  yet  are  not  painful,  —  these 
would  seem  to  be  deep  stirrings  within  us  of  that 
restless,  unsatisfied  spiritual  life.  It  is  in  such 
moments  that  we  become  most  thrillingly  aware 
how  real  and  intense  is  our  life,  how  keen  its 
ardors  and  its  longings. 

But  leaving  this  discussion  of  the  nature  of 
artistic  feeling,  which  more  properly  belongs  to 
the  science  of  aesthetics,  let  us  turn  to  the  more 
practical  question  of  criticism,  How  shall  we 
measure  and  estimate  this  most  important  ele- 
ment in  literature  ?  And  here,  before  answering 
this  question  in  detail,  we  should  notice  that 
a  transient  power  to  awaken  emotion  of  a  cer- 
tain quality  in  a  great  many  people  is  no  proof 
of  literary  value.  In  other  words,  popularity  — 
i.e.  widespread  emotional  interest  —  is  no  sure  in- 
dication of  permanence.  Indeed,  just  the  opposite 
is  usually,  though  not  universally,  true.  For  such 
popularity  usually  arises  from  one  or  another  of 
three  causes,  neither  of  which  is  consistent  with 
the  highest  literary  quality. 

1.  The  first  of  these  is  novelty,  either  in  matter 
or  manner.  Anything  striking  or  outre" ;  any  new 
motive ;  any  freakish  or  morbid  psychology ;  any 
hitherto  unexplored  region,  geographical  or  spirit- 
ual 5  any  curiosities  of  dialect  or  structure  —  may 


THE    EMOTIONAL    ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     79 

give  a  book  great  currency  for  a  time.  But  the 
work  that  has  no  higher  claim  upon  immortality 
than  this  power  to  stir  curiosity,  though  it  may 
be  the  fad  of  a  year  or  possibly  the  fashion  of  a 
generation,  will  inevitably  drop  into  oblivion. 

2.  A  book  is  often  widely  popular  because  it 
represents  some  contemporary  movement,  eco- 
nomic, political,  or  religious.  It  is  a  kind  of 
campaign  document.  This  is  often  the  case  with 
works  of  fiction.  No  kind  of  argument  is  so 
effective  as  a  taking  novel,  and  nothing  else 
affords  such  excellent  facilities  for  begging  the 
question.  The  novelist  can  bend  recalcitrant  facts 
to  his  theory,  create  both  characters  and  circum- 
stances ;  and  if  he  be  ingenious,  he  will  be  able 
to  give  to  the  most  hopeless  doctrine  a  plausible 
dress  of  fact.  Those  who  are  in  sympathy  with 
the  movement  represented  will  rejoice  to  see  it 
so  vividly  illustrated  —  that  is  what  they  tall 
"  showing  truth  in  the  guise  of  fiction " ;  those 
who  are  opposed  to  the  movement  will  be  inter- 
ested, though  irritated,  to  see  what  plausible  cir- 
cumstance may  be  invented  to  support  falsity  — 
that  is  what  they  call  "arraying  fiction  in  the  garb 
of  truth";  while  a  great  many  people  who  know 
ami  care  little  about  the  movement  will  be  at- 
tracted by  the  catchy  story,  and  wonder  indo- 
lently whether  there  "isn't  something  in  it,  after 
all.''     And  everybody  will  read  it. 

Occasionally  a  book  represents  Boine  movement 


80       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

not  merely  local  or  even  national,  but  almost 
world-wide.  Such  a  book  may  attain  not  only  vast 
temporary  popularity  but  a  permanent  historical 
interest  quite  out  of  proportion  to  its  literary 
merit.  The  most  popular  book  ever  written  in 
America  is  Mrs.  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  which 
was  translated  into  twenty  different  languages 
and  went  through  the  civilized  world  like  wild- 
fire. For  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  appeared  in  1852, 
when  an  aggressive  humanitarian  sentiment  was 
showing  itself  not  only  in  the  anti-slavery  agi- 
tation in  America  but  in  the  revolutionary  tem- 
per that  accompanied  and  followed  the  risings 
of  '48  all  over  Europe,  when  men  could  almost 
hear 

11  Far  along  the  world-wide  whisper  of  the  south-wind  rush- 
ing warm, 
With  the  standards  of  the  peoples  plunging  thro'   the 
thunder-storm." 

But  a  work  of  literature  in  the  service  of  any  spe- 
cial reform  is  likely  to  be  of  only  temporary  in- 
terest. If  the  reform  succeeds  and  the  measures 
advocated  become  a  part  of  the  admitted  constitu- 
tion of  society,  then  the  books  written  to  further 
these  measures  come  to  have  little  more  than  an 
historical  or  antiquarian  interest;  if  the  reform 
fails,  the  books  will  be  proved  false  by  the  logic 
of  events  and  will  be  forgotten. 

3.    But  the  surest  recipe  for  popularity  is  an  at- 
tractive mediocrity.     Tor  the  mass  of  people  bow 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     81 

respectfully  to  the  great  books  —  and  never  read 
them.  The  book  that  is  immediately  and  widely 
popular  is  almost  sure  to  be  "light  reading."  A 
great  book  may  indeed  be  easy  reading,  simply  be- 
cause it  so  rouses  our  emotions  and  stimulates  our 
intellect  that  our  powers  work  upon  it  earnestly 
and  gladly  —  it  inspires  the  energy  with  which  we 
read  it ;  but  no  great  book  can  be  "  light  reading." 
It  cannot  be  read  while  half  our  wits  are  asleep 
or  wool-gathering  on  some  other  subject,  or  while 
half  our  emotions  are  engaged  to  another  theme. 
It  demands  all  our  powers.  It  will,  therefore,  be 
voted  too  hard  by  the  million.  One  may  ques- 
tion, in  passing,  whether  the  enormous  diffusion 
of  mediocre  writing  in  recent  years,  especially  in 
the  form  of  fiction  and  periodical  publications, 
while  it  has  enlarged  the  reading  public,  has  not 
at  the  same  time  relaxed  the  mental  fibre  of  the 
readers  and  increased  their  disinclination  to  any 
more  serious  literature.  But  it  goes  without  say- 
ing that  writing  such  as  this,  which  only  stirs  a 
lukewarm  sentiment  and  never  gives  the  reader 
the  trouble  of  thinking,  cannot  live;  it  is  simply 
pushed  into  oblivion  by  the  ever  succeeding  vol- 
ume of  the  same  kind  of  stuff. 

Disregarding,  then,  that  transient  aud  superficial 
power  over  emotion  which  is  termed  popularity,  let 
us  inquire  by  what  tests  the  permanent  value  of 
the  emotional  effect  of  literature  may  be  measured. 
Of  such  tests  \vr  may  name  five,  as  follows:  — 
a 


82       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

1.  The  justice  or  propriety  of  the  emotion. 

2.  The  vividness  or  power  of  the  emotion. 

3.  The  continuity  or  steadiness  of  the  emotion. 

4.  The  range  or  variety  of  the  emotion. 

5.  The  rank  or  quality  of  the  emotion. 
These  we  will  proceed  to  consider. 

1.  By  calling  an  emotion  just  or  appropriate  we 
mean  that  there  is  good  cause  for  it.  Emotion  of 
a  worthy  type  may  have  slight  literary  value  sim- 
ply because  it  has  no  adequate  ground.  Thus, 
says  Buskin,  "energetic  admiration  may  be  ex- 
cited by  a  display  of  fireworks,  or  a  street  of 
handsome  shops ;  but  the  feeling  is  not  poetical, 
because  the  grounds  of  it  are  false,  and  therefore 
ignoble.  There  is  in  reality  nothing  to  deserve 
admiration  either  in  the  firing  of  packets  of  gun- 
powder or  in  the  display  of  the  stocks  of  ware- 
houses. But  admiration  excited  by  the  budding 
of  a  flower  is  a  poetic  feeling,  because  it  is  im- 
possible that  this  manifestation  of  spiritual  power 
and  vital  beauty  can  ever  be  enough  admired."1 
In  estimating  a  book  the  question  is  always  legiti- 
mate, Is  the  emotion  which  this  book  excites 
healthy  ?  Is  it  derived  from  adequate  causes, 
intrinsic  in  the  book  itself?  For  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible, as  stated  on  a  previous  page,  that  a  book 
may  excite  for  a  time  strong  emotion  by  causes 
that  are  not  genuine  and  permanent,  especially  if 
it  can  avail  itself  of  some  abnormal  current  of  pop- 
i  "  Modern  Painters,"  Part  IV,  ch.  I,  §  13. 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     83 

alar  feeling.  Thus,  for  example,  Byron's  series 
of  romantic  poems  written  between  1813  and 
1818,  Hie  Corsair,  Lara,  TJie  Giaour,  The  Bride  of 
Abydoa,  The  Siege  of  Corinth,  not  only  were  im- 
mensely popular,  but  they  really  scored  a  deep 
mark  in  the  feeling  of  all  classes.  And  yet  on 
reflection  men  have  seen,  for  the  last  fifty  years, 
that  there  was  no  adequate  cause  in  the  poems  for 
this  emotional  effect.  Their  incidents  are  simply 
those  of  the  penny  dreadful,  the  adventures  of  im- 
possible romantic  pirates  and  desperadoes,  beauty 
and  butchery,  blood  and  moonlight.  The  whole 
thing  is  false;  there  never  were  any  such  people 
and  there  never  could  be.  While  as  to  the  real 
Conrads  and  Laras,  how  they  love,  and  engender, 
ami  adulterize,  and  poison,  and  stab  is  no  earthly 
matter  to  us.  The  actions  and  motives  the  poet 
attributes  to  his  persons  are  false,  the  sentiments 
he  puts  in  their  mouths  for  the  most  part  impossi- 
ble and  altogether  unhealthy.  The  estimate  of 
these  poems,  accordingly,  has  inevitably  declined, 
and  they  are  now  little  read.  A  somewhat  similar 
charge,  though  to  a  much  less  degree  and  in  a  very 
different  way.  may  be  brought  against  some  of  the 
poetry  Of  Shelley.  Here  the  emotional  effect  of 
the  verse  is  keen  and  exquisite,  but  we  have  to  ad- 
mit that  it  has  no  clear  rational  warrant.  There 
Been  to  be  no  ideas  under  it.  Such  a  poem  as  the 
Epipsychidion  is  the  utterance  of  intense  emotion 
that  thrills  us  with  a  kind  of  poignant  Minpathy, 


84       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

and  we  hardly  know  why.  There  are  those,  indeed, 
who  hold  this  power  to  be  a  high  reach  of  art ;  but 
it  would  seem  rather,  not  an  excellence,  but  a  defect 
in  Shelley's  work  that  its  intense  emotion  has  no 
more  tangible  basis  in  healthy  human  experience. 

All  forms  of  sentimentalism  in  literature  result 
from  the  endeavor  to  excite  the  emotions  of  pathos 
or  affection  without  adequate  cause.  These  emo- 
tions are  always  pleasurable,  and  when,  as  in  litera- 
ture, they  cost  nothing  in  effort,  there  is  a  natural 
temptation  to  indulge  them  on  slight  warrant  or 
to  a  disproportionate  degree.  Hence  the  popular 
power  of  the  sentimentalist.  But  our  sounder 
judgment  recognizes  that  emotions  thus  easily 
aroused,  or  consciously  indulged  for  their  own 
sake,  have  something  hollow  about  them.  We 
cannot  use  our  deeper  and  truer  feelings  merely 
to  coddle  and  titillate  ourselves  with.  The  senti- 
mentalist may  exhibit  his  emotion  in  its  more  pro- 
nounced form,  and  angle  for  our  sympathy  by 
dwelling  upon  all  the  accidents  of  external  mani- 
festation; but  the  truer  artist  does  not  hold  his 
own  feelings  so  cheap,  and  the  emotion  he  excites 
in  us  is  grounded  upon  deep  truths  of  human  life. 
Dickens  paints  the  death-bed  of  Paul  Dombey  or 
Little  Nell,  touch  after  touch,  with  conscious  and 
skillful  accumulation  of  moving  circumstances. 
Wordsworth  says  simply  of  the  old  huntsman 
who  pauses  at  his  cottage  door  a  moment  before 
he  joins  the  hunt, — 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IX   LITERATURE    85 

"  Perhaps  to  himself  at  that  moment  he  said, 
'  The  key  I  must  take,  for  my  Ellen  is  dead ' ; 
But  of  this  in  my  ears  not  a  word  did  he  speak, 
And  he  went  to  the  chase  with  a  tear  on  his  cheek. " 

Both  writers  touch  our  emotion,  and  the  same 
emotion ;  but  the  pathos  of  the  one  is  a  little 
suggestive  of  the  undertaker,  dwelling  on  "the 
trappings  and  the  suits  of  wroe  " ;  while  the  pathos 
of  the  other  has  the  reserve  and  reticence  that 
bespeak  deep  grief.  It  would  be  universally  ad- 
mitted that  Wordsworth's  art  here  is  better  than 
that  of  Dickens.  Few  poets,  indeed,  have  ever 
had  in  so  high  degree  as  Wordsworth  the  power 
to  exhibit  deep  emotion  in  simple  incident  or 
homely  character. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  occasion  of  emotion 
may  often  be  trivial,  but  not  the  cause.  In  the 
lines  just  quoted  the  occasion  of  the  emotion  is  the 
trivial  fact  that  the  old  man  stops  to  lock  the  door 
of  his  empty  house  and  takes  the  key;  but  this 
action  is  enough  to  give  us  a  glimpse  into  his 
lonely  heart  —  and  there  is  the  cause  of  our  emo- 
tion. Generally,  it  is  a  proof  of  high  imaginative 
power  so  completely  to  realize  a  character  or  a  pas- 
sion as  to  see  intuitively  how  it  would  express  it- 
self in  Blight  and  otherwise  unmeaning  acts.  The 
appeal  to  our  sympathy  is  thus  rendered  more 
effective  because  it   seems  unintentional. 

We  may,  then,  affirm  as  a  universal  rale,  that,  in 
order  to  he  of  high  or  permanent  literary  value, 


86       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

emotion  must  spring  from  deep  and  worthy  cause ; 
and  that  when  this  rule  is  violated  the  feeling  ex- 
cited by  any  work  of  art  or  letters  is  sure  to  be 
morbid,  or  declamatory,  or  sentimental,  or  in  some 
other  way  false. 

2.  That  the  literary  value  of  emotion  is  meas- 
ured by  its  Vividness  or  Power  is  so  obvious  as 
perhaps  hardly  to  need  statement.  But  however 
obvious  it  may  be  —  a  truism  if  you  like  —  this  is 
at  once  the  most  natural  and  the  most  undeniable 
test  of  literature.  Does  it  move  you?  Does  it 
stimulate,  arouse,  thrill,  enlarge  ?  Does  it  seem 
for  the  moment  to  give  you  new  vision  to  see  and 
new  heart  to  feel  ?  If  it  does  this,  your  book  is 
literature ;  and,  other  things  being  equal,  the  more 
intensely  it  does  this,  the  greater  literature  is  it. 
"  Books,"  says  Emerson,  "  are  for  nothing  but  to 
inspire." 

The  terms  vividness  and  poiver  might  seem 
to  apply  rather  to  the  active  emotions  than  to 
the  passive,  to  the  passions  rather  than  to  deep 
and  quiet  states  of  feeling.  Yet  these  latter  may 
be  as  truly  powerful  as  the  former.  In  such  poetry 
as  the  following,  for  example,  the  emotion  is 
certainly  as  deep,  the  hush  and  silence  brought 
upon  our  spirits  as  compelling  as  any  more  aggres- 
sive or  passionate  type  of  feeling  could  be. 

"  Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair: 
Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by 
A  sight  so  touching  in  its  majesty : 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     87 

This  City  now  doth  like  a  garment  wear 

The  beauty  of  the  morning ;  silent,  bare, 

Ships,  towers,  domes,  theatres,  and  temples  lie 

Open  unto  the  fields,  and  to  the  sky  ; 

All  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air. 

Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep 

In  his  first  splendour  valley,  rock,  or  hill ; 

Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep  I 

The  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will : 

Dear  God  !  the  very  houses  seem  asleep ; 

And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  impossible  to  find 
any  exact  common  measure  for  different  kinds  of 
emotion.  How  shall  one  compare  pathos  that  is  ten- 
der and  pitiful  with  pathos  that  is  stern  and  silent 
—  Ophelia  with  Othello  —  and  say  that  one  is  more 
powerful  than  the  other  ?  Still  less  can  we  find 
any  common  measure  for  the  emotions  of  pathos  and 
of  sublimity  or  of  exquisite  beauty.  Then  there 
are  forms  of  emotion  arising  from  reflection,  from 
llic  perception  of  deep  or  wide  truth,  that  would 
seem  at  first  to  have  little  power  because  they  are 
quiet  and  are  rooted,  so  to  say,  in  thought :  but  if 
less  thrilling  they  are  often  the  most  profound  of 
all.  Such  a  poem  as  Wordsworth's  great  Ode  on 
(he  Intimations  of  Immortality  may  be  cited  as  an 
example;  it  is  not  impassioned  but  august,  yet 
perhaps  no  othei  modern  poem  moves  a  greater 
volume  <>i'  feeling.  Moreover,  much  depends  upon 
individual  temperament.  One  man  is  constitution- 
ally more  sensitive  to  one  type  of  emotion,  ami 
another   to   another.     So    that    it    may    be    readily 


88       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

admitted  that  no  estimate  of  the  power  of  emo- 
tional effects  can  serve  as  a  nice  test  of  compara- 
tive excellence.  Yet  it  remains  true  that,  whatever 
the  type  of  emotion  and  whatever  its  canse  — 
whether  some  aspect  of  nature,  some  act  of  man,  or 
some  truth  —  in  any  case  it  is  always  intelligible 
to  speak  of  the  intensity  or  power  of  the  emotion ; 
and  it  is  certain  that  the  value  of  the  writing  is 
measured  very  largely  by  this. 

This  intensity  of  effect  in  most  instances  depends 
primarily  upon  the  nature  of  the  writer.  He  must 
feel  deeply  himself  or  he  cannot  expect  to  make  us 
feel  deeply.  Hence  a  certain  force  of  tempera- 
ment, a  richness  and  volume  of  emotion,  is  a  requi- 
site of  any  really  great  writer.  Sometimes  a  man 
in  many  respects  richly  endowed  fails  of  any  high 
place  in  letters  because  he  lacks  this  inner  force. 
That  was  the  case,  for  instance,  with  Cowper.  He 
had  nice  sensibilities,  a  quick  eye  for  beauty,  a 
graceful  humor,  a  delicate  gift  of  phrase ;  but  he 
lacked  power.  He  seemed  not  fully  alive.  Addi- 
son is  another  example  of  a  man  long  accounted  a 
master  and  model,  who  nevertheless  failed  of  any 
permanent  leadership  because  of  this  lack  of  vigor. 
It  was  excellently  said  of  him  by  Johnson,  "  He 
thinks  justly,  but  he  thinks  feebly."  On  the  other 
hand,  we  frequently  see  a  poet  whose  influence 
seems  to  come  almost  entirely  from  the  passionate 
intensity  of  his  nature.  Byron  is  a  good  example. 
There  is  very  little  truth  in   Byron's  work :    his 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     80 

characters  are  nothing  —  mere  photographs  of  his 
own  postures;  his  action  is  largely  melodrama; 
his  workmanship  is  often  hurried  and  slovenly  to 
the  last  degree;  and  yet  Byron  impressed  him- 
self upon  his  generation  as  no  one  else  could. 
The  sheer  force  of  his  personality,  perverse,  un- 
healthy, but  intense,  burned  his  work  into  men's 
minds.  The  emotion  was  for  the  most  part  not 
sane  or  well-grounded,  and  his  work,  therefore,  has 
largely  lost  its  interest;  but  for  a  time  it  had 
immense  power. 

We  are  not,  however,  to  think  that  emotion  the 
strongest  which  is  most  demonstrative  and  tur- 
bulent; indeed  turbulence  and  confusion  usually 
imply  some  lack  of  self-command,  or  some  derange- 
ment of  faculty.  The  emotion  really  the  deepest 
is  often  the  stillest,  — 

"Such  a  tide  as,  moving,  seems  asleep, 
Too  full  for  sound  and  foam." 

The  ideal  poet's  nature,  with  respect  to  the  point 
now  under  consideration,  is  full,  intense,  passion- 
ate, but  steady;  a  nature  of  strong  passion  under 
the  control  of  a  strong  will  —  such  a  soul  as 

"  Loves  to  have  his  sails  filled  with  a  lusty  wind 
Even  till  his  masts  drink  water  and  his  keel  ploughs  air," 

and  yet  is  obedienl  to  the  helm  of  an  iron  will. 
That,  one  thinks,  is  the  kind  of  man  Shakspere 
was. 

Doubtless  also  this  power  to  stir  our  emotions 


90       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

depends,  to  some  degree,  upon  an  author's  gifts  of 
expression.  The  whole  matter  of  Form  must  be 
discussed  in  a  later  chapter;  but  it  may  be  said 
here  that,  while  a  man  can  usually  express  with 
clearness  what  lies  clear  in  his  own  mind,  it  does  not 
by  any  means  follow  that  he  can  express  it  with 
force.  That  is,  he  may  be  able  to  utter  his  thought, 
but  quite  unable  to  utter  the  emotion  which  the 
thought  excites  in  his  own  mind.  There  are 
doubtless  many  natures  of  strong  feeling  without 
a  corresponding  gift  of  expression.  There  are 
poets,  and  really  great  poets,  whose  gift  of  utter- 
ance seems  manifestly  in  no  wise  adequate  to  the 
volume  of  poetic  emotion  they  have  to  utter. 
There  could  be  no  better  example  of  this  than 
Robert  Browning.  At  his  best,  Browning  has 
power  over  our  love  and  pity,  our  aspirations  and 
longings,  such  as  no  other  poet  of  the  last  two 
generations  could  command;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  good  part  of  his  poetry  never  seems  to  get 
at  our  emotions,  for  lack  of  power  to  utter  it 
aright.  And  every  student  of  Browning  must  be 
persuaded  that  Browning  himself  feels  most  pro- 
foundly some  portions  of  his  work  which  he  scarcely 
makes  his  readers  feel  at  all.  Had  his  gift  of 
expression  been  proportionate  to  his  other  endow- 
ments, the  verdicts  of  his  most  extravagant  ad- 
mirers might  have  been  justified  —  he  might  have 
been  the  greatest  English  poet  since  Shakspere. 
What  has  been  said  thus  far  of  this  quality  of 


THE    EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     91 

the  emotion  which  literature  excites  may  have 
seemed  to  refer  to  poetry  exclusively,  as  all  our 
illustrations  have  been  drawn  from  that.  But  in 
fact  vividness  or  power  of  emotion  is  no  less  cer- 
tainly one  criterion  of  excellence  in  prose  litera- 
ture. In  most  forms  of  prose,  indeed,  the  element 
of  emotion  is  not  the  primary  purpose  of  the  writ- 
ing, and  is  therefore  relatively  less  important  than 
the  element  of  thought.  Yet  everywhere  in  prose 
writing  what  we  call  force,  energy,  vigor,  vivacity, 
brilliancy,  are  only  names  for  this  incidental  power 
to  stir  various  emotions.  Nowhere,  except  in 
purely  scientific  writing  —  which  is  not  literature, 
and  admits  no  literary  virtues  except  clearness  — 
is  this  effect  upon  the  emotions  needless  or  out  of 
place.  It  is  this  which  explains  the  mastery  of 
any  great  prose  writer,  of  a  Burke  or  a  Swift. 
Their  means  of  influence  may  be  very  different. 
In  I'.urke's  case  it  would  seem  to  be  the  largeness  of 
the  thought  that  moves  us,  the  imposing  and  often 
imaginative  way  in  which  its  real  proportions  are 
thrown  up  before  our  view;  in  Swift's  work  the 
thought  is  simple,  sometimes  of  secondary  value, 
but  the  intense,  strenuous,  almost  rude  vigor  of  the 
man  is  pushed  directly  upon  us;   it  is  an  immense, 

overmastering  will  that  confronts  us,  and  commands 
our  admiration  for  its  power  and  mass.  Similarly 
we  call  historical  writing  brilliant  or  powerful 
when  the  men  and  events  portrayed  touch  our 
sympathy  as  they  would  if  we   saw  them  here  and 


92       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

now.  A  brilliant  history  can  give  us  the  same 
kind  of  emotion  that  a  drama  does ;  and  the  more 
nearly  this  emotional  effect  approximates  in  amount 
or  degree  to  that  we  derive,  for  example,  from  one 
of  Shakspere's  historical  plays,  the  more  brilliant 
and,  other  things  being  equal,  the  greater  will 
the  history  be.  Few  historical  dramas  ever  writ- 
ten can  arouse  or  thrill  like  Carlyle's  French  Revo- 
lution.  Other  things  being  equal,  I  say,  the  more 
brilliant  the  history  the  greater;  but  of  course  it 
is  to  be  understood  that  brilliancy  or  power  is  not 
the  primary  virtue  in  historical  writing.  We  esti- 
mate a  history  first  by  its  truth  to  facts  and  its 
justice  of  opinion.  And  vividness  of  emotional 
effect  would  become  a  hindrance  to  this  prime  pur- 
pose of  the  history,  if  the  emotions  excited  were 
ill-grounded,  or  partial,  or  tended  to  obscure  the 
truth.  Not  that  a  vivid  emotional  realization  of 
the  facts  of  history  is  any  necessary  hindrance  to 
a  correct  judgment  upon  them;  on  the  contrary, 
Carlyle  is  nearer  right  in  his  opinion  that  the 
reader  at  least  cannot  frame  an  impartial  judgment 
upon  the  men  and  actions  of  the  past  until  he  has 
felt  himself  in  intimate  sympathy  with  them.  But 
it  is  true  that  the  sensitive,  emotional  temperament 
is  not  infrequently  lacking  in  cool  judicial  power. 
Mr.  Froude  may  serve  as  an  example;  he  was  a 
very  brilliant  historian,  but  not  always  a  very  safe 
one. 

3.  The  third  test  of  the  literary  value  of  emo- 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     03 

tion,  Continuity  or  Steadiness,  is  akin  to  that  just 
discussed,  though  somewhat  different.  We  like 
to  have  the  emotional  effect  of  any  writing,  or 
indeed  of  any  work  of  art  which  is  prolonged, 
like  music,  sustained.  If  our  feeling  at  any  point 
is  allowed  to  drop  quite  down  to  the  normal  level 
of  commonplace,  we  not  only  lose  just  so  much 
emotional  effect,  but  we  experience  an  unpleasant 
sense  of  discord,  which  is  in  itself  a  positive  fault. 
Sometimes  this  lack  of  power  to  sustain  emotion 
is  seen  in  sudden,  brief  lapses  within  the  compass 
of  a  line  or  two.  If  he  be  a  poet,  the  writer  drops 
down  into  prose  for  a  little.  If  the  slip  is  sudden 
and  violent,  the  author  falling  lowest  just  at  the 
instant  when  he  ought  to  mount  highest,  the  effect 
is  often  humorous  —  a  sudden  summersault  over 
that  dangerous  brink  of  incongruity  which  sepa- 
rates the  sublime,  not  only  from  the  pathetic,  but 
from  the  ridiculous.  Addison's  once  famous  play 
of  Cato  furnishes  amusing  examples  of  this. 
"  Alas ! "  says  Marcia  to  her  friend  Lucia,  who 
is  over-cold  toward  a  lover, — 

"  Al;us  !  pour  youth,  how  canst  thou  throw  him  from  thee  ! 
Unhappy  youth  !  how  will  thy  coldness  raise 
Tempests  ami  storms  in  his  afflicted  bosom  ! 
/  dread  the  consequence/" 

Lucia,  overtaken  by  calamities  calls  out, — 

"Alas  !  too  late  I  timl  myself  involved 
In  endless  griefs  and  labyrinths  of  woe  — 
Bum  to  afflict  tny  Sfareia's  family  /" 


94       PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 
"  Portius,"  cries  Lucia,  — 

"  I  swear,  to  heaven  I  swear, 
Never  to  mix  my  plighted  hands  with  thine 
While  such  a  cloud  of  mischiefs  hangs  about  us, 
But  to  forget  our  loves,  and  drive  thee  out 
From  all  my  thoughts,  —  as  far  as  I  am  able  !  " 

Wordsworth  now  and  then  has  passages  of  uncon- 
scious humor  of  this  sort,  though  his  lapses  are  not 
usually  quite  so  steep  or  sudden.  His  inspiration 
seems  to  give  out.  He  shuts  off  his  light  and  heat, 
and  leaves  us  chilly  and  stumbling  among  common- 
place perhaps  for  pages,  when  suddenly  we  meet 
again  the  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea. 

Now  every  work  of  art  should  have  a  certain 
unity  of  feeling.  There  is,  of  course,  at  the  same 
time  need  of  variety.  To  continue  the  same  emo- 
tion, at  the  same  pitch,  for  any  great  length  of 
time,  would  be  impossible  if  the  emotion  were 
intense,  and  intolerably  monotonous  if  it  were 
not.  That  is  simply  not  natural :  our  feelings 
will  not  act  in  that  wray.  There  must  be  in  any 
work  of  art  flux  and  reflux  of  emotion,  light  and 
shade ;  yet,  to  continue  the  musical  metaphor, 
while  the  composition  cannot  be  in  every  part  at 
the  same  pitch,  it  must  all  be  in  the  same  key. 
It  must  nowhere  drop  out  of  the  emotional  mood 
altogether.  There  must  be  no  passages  through 
which  the  writer  seems  to  be  patiently  plodding, 
intent  only  upon  his  facts  or  truths,  and  forgetful 
that  it   is   his  duty  to  recommend  those  facts  and 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     95 

truths  in  some  way  to  our  literary  sensibility.  For 
it  is  quite  possible  so  to  vary  and  combine  emotions 
as  to  sustain  the  whole  composition,  even  though 
a  long  and  varied  one,  in  the  same  emotional  key 
throughout.  There  could  hardly  be  a  better  ex- 
ample of  this  than  any  one  of  Shakspere's  great 
plays.  What  infinite  variety  of  effects  !  And  yet 
all  these  effects  are  brought  into  harmony  with 
the  dominant  tone  of  the  play ;  and  at  no  point 
is  the  interest  lowered  by  mere  needless  narrative 
or  dry  moralizing.  Shakspere  has  all  manner 
of  violation  of  the  formal  laws  of  unity,  but  he 
never  fails  to  observe  this  one  essential  unity,  — 
the  unity  of  feeling.  Consider  any  one  of  his  plays 
—  liomeo  and  Juliet,  for  example  —  and  see  how 
the  emotion  of  the  reader  is  sustained  throughout, 
and  sustained  in  the  same  dominant  key.  Every- 
thing is  youth  and  ardor,  summer  and  bloom  and 
fragrance  —  intense,  poignant,  rapturous,  infinite 
in  longings  and  ecstasies. 

It  is  this  necessity  for  sustaining  the  emotion 
in  literary  work  that  is  at  the  basis  of  all  rhetorical 
rules  for  unity.  We  are  told  that  nothing  should 
be  introduced  into  a  work  of  art  which  is  irrelevant 
to  its  main  purpose;  but  then,  the  question  arises, 
What  is  irrelevant?  And  that  question  is  best 
answered  by  affirming  that  only  to  be  irrelevant 
which  interrupts  or  lowers  the  emotional  effect  of 
the  work,  or  turns  it  into  another  mood  altogether. 
A    great    deal    of    digression,    episode,   or    other 


96       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

matter  not  permitted  by  strict  laws  of  structural 
unity,  will  be  pardoned  if  only  the  interest  is  not 
allowed  to  flag,  and  if  the  emotions  these  passages 
excite  are  in  harmony  with  the  rest  of  the  work. 
On  the  other  hand,  anything,  however  valuable  in 
itself,  however  true  or  beautiful,  that  allows  the 
emotional  interest  to  drop,  or,  what  really  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  tends  to  arouse  emotions  in- 
consistent with  the  main  current  of  feeling  in 
the  work,  must  be  removed. 

Such  failure  to  produce  sustained  and  continu- 
ous emotion  in  the  reader  arises  usually  from  the 
fact  that  the  writer's  own  emotions  are  not  steady, 
and  often  are  not  intense  enough.  He  does  not 
realize  his  subject  as  a  whole,  and  at  every  point, 
but  only  at  its  most  striking  or  impressive  points. 
Consequently  he  drops  into  commonplace  here 
and  there ;  or,  what  is  perhaps  worse,  recognizing 
the  necessity  of  sustained  effect,  he  tries  to  make 
up  for  the  lack  of  genuine  feeling  by  labored  and 
inapt  efforts  to  excite  feeling  that  he  does  not 
himself  share;  the  result  is  "fine  writing,"  care- 
fully elaborated  imagery  out  of  harmony  with  the 
sentiment,  or  some  other  form  of  literary  in- 
sincerity. 

Of  course  it  is  in  the  more  extended  forms  of 
literature  that  this  demand  for  sustained  emotion 
is  at  once  most  necessary  and  most  difficult.  In 
shorter  forms,  like  the  lyric,  the  emotion  will 
probably  be  sustained,  but  may  be   feeble.      The 


THE   EMOTIONAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     97 

lyric  is  the  literary  form  in  which  intense,  con- 
centrated emotion  most  naturally  utters  itself, 
since  such  emotion  is  of  necessity  short-lived.  It 
has  been  said  sometimes  that,  for  this  reason, 
all  true  poetry  is  of  the  nature  of  lyric ;  that  any 
considerable  degree  of  emotion,  requisite  to  poetry 
of  a  high  order,  cannot  be  long  continued.  A  long 
poem,  said  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms.  But  in  opposition  to  all  such  verdicts, 
it  has  always  been  held  not  only  that  there  are 
long  poems,  but  that  those  are  the  greatest  poets 
who  have  written  the  long  poems;  that  the  highest 
reach  of  ability  is  shown  in  this  power  to  carry  a 
temper  of  elevated  or  profound  feeling  throughout 
a  long  work.  The  epic  may  not  be  so  popular  a 
form  as  the  lyric,  but  it  is  a  higher.  Dante, 
Spenser,  Milton,  are  greater  masters  than  the 
lyrist,  however  beautiful  or  thrilling  his  work. 
So  the  great  dramatist  or  the  really  great  novelist 
commands  our  admiration  in  part  because  he  can 
maintain  his  powers  throughout  a  long  and  varied 
work. 

4.  Evidently  the  value  of  any  work  of  literature 
must  depend  to  a  considerable  degree  upon  the 
Range  or  Variety  of  its  emotional  effects.  Great 
range  of  power  is  a  very  rare  endowment.  A 
man  may  attain  high  eminence  in  letters  with- 
out it  —  Milton,  for  example.  It  is  rare,  indeed, 
to  find  even  great  breadth  of  appreciation.  I'Yw 
are   the   literary  critics  who,  like    James    Rue 


98       PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Lowell,  can  show  a  range  of  critical  perception 
wide  enough  to  enjoy  to  the  full  and  thus  esti- 
mate with  equal  justice  two  such  antithetically 
different  poets  as  Dante  and  Dryden.  Most  of 
us  cannot  claim  to  have  a  catholic  taste;  we  do 
not  enjoy  a  wide  range  of  literary  excellence, 
often  cannot  appreciate  it  when  it  is  pointed  out 
to  us.  How  seldom,  for  instance,  can  a  man  be 
found  who  has  any  hearty  enjoyment  of  both 
Pope  and  Shelley.1  And  if  the  power  to  appre- 
ciate widely  different  emotional  effects  be  thus 
limited,  still  more  limited,  of  course,  is  the  power 
to  produce  them.  For  the  power  to  produce 
those  emotional  effects  upon  which  literature  de- 

1  It  is  worth  while  to  remark,  parenthetically,  that  if  we  do 
not  enjoy  anything  we  should  never  profess  that  we  do,  either 
from  motives  of  vanity  or  a  commendable  desire  to  widen  our 
perceptions  and  bring  ourselves  into  sympathy  with  those  who 
see  what  we  cannot.  Such  a  profession  is  as  dangerous  to  taste 
as  to  morals.  For  if  we  begin  by  misrepresenting  and  sophisti- 
cating our  taste  we  shall  end  by  having  no  taste  of  our  own  at 
all,  but  only  a  flaccid  dependence  upon  the  dicta  of  other  people. 
A  familiar  and  homely  example  of  the  way  in  which  taste  may 
be  so  subordinated  to  fashion  as  to  be  practically  annulled  may 
be  seen  in  the  case  of  woman's  dress.  Whatever  is  the  mode 
looks  well  to  us,  simply  because  our  liking  has  come  to  be  de- 
pendent not  at  all  on  any  laws  of  beauty  but  on  arbitrary 
caprice.  An  old  fashion  plate  looks  ugly,  though  it  very  likely 
conforms  as  nearly  to  any  laws  of  beauty  in  form  and  color  as 
the  costume  of  the  next  lady  you  meet.  In  one  whole  depart- 
ment of  what  might  be  art,  taste  has  abdicated  in  favor  of 
fashion.  So  that  a  statue  of  a  woman  in  ordinary  dress  of 
to-day  would  be  absurd,  and  no  painter  even  dares  to  paint 
a  portrait  of  a  lady  in  any  accentuated  form  of  the  mode  of 
the  period. 


THE   EMOTIONAL    ELEMENT   IX  LITERATURE     99 

pends,  presupposes,  as  we  have  seen,  a  certain 
vigor  and  intensity  of  nature ;  and  that,  as  a  rule, 
is  not  to  be  expected  in  a  wide  range  of  subjects. 
To  say  nothing  of  the  lack  of  that  breadth  of 
personal  experience  which  is  retpiisite  to  a  great 
range  of  emotional  effect,  most  men's  powers  work 
at  their  best  only  within  rather  narrow  limits. 
Intensity  of  interest  in  one  direction  usually  im- 
plies a  corresponding  withdrawal  of  interest  from 
other  directions.  In  fact,  intensity  anywhere  usu- 
ally implies  something  of  narrowness.  Too  often 
a  symmetrical,  broadly  perceptive,  tolerant  char- 
acter is  deficient  in  the  personal  force  necessary 
to  produce  decided  literary  effect;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  those  men  whose  personality  seems 
most  pronounced  and  strenuous,  who  have  scored 
the  deepest  mark  in  the  literature  of  their  time, 
are  often  men  whose  limitations  are  most  strongly 
marked.  Carlyle,  for  example.  The  range  of  emo- 
tional effects  he  could  produce  is  very  limited ;  but 
within  those  limits  his  power  is  resistless.  Most 
lyrical  poets  —  whose  -work  should  be  concentrated 
and  intense  —  have  a  mastery  of  only  one  or  two 
moods.  The  very  high  rank  of  Burns  depends,  in 
:;i«at  part,  on  the  fact  that  he  could  command  a 
wider  range  of  emotion  than  most  lyrists;  humor 
in  almost  all  its  varieties  save  the  cynical,  pathos 
in  several  forms,  love  when  young  and  passionate, 
personal  independence  and  the  competence  of  the 

individual,  patriotism  —  Burns   has  sung  them  all. 


100    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

The  lyrical  work  of  Shelley,  on  the  other  hand, 
though  it  has  an  exquisiteness  of  manner  and  a 
keen,  though  vague,  emotional  rapture  such  as 
Burns  can  never  reach,  is  all  in  one  or  another 
of  two  or  three  keys. 

It  is  the  dramatist  and  the  novelist  who  most 
need  this  command  of  a  wide  range  of  emotional 
effects  ;  since  their  work,  unlike  that  of  the  lyrical 
poet,  is  not  subjective,  but  aims  rather  to  give  a 
broad,  impartial  picture  of  the  life  of  men.  Yet 
the  field  of  most  novelists  seems  not  very  wide. 
Any  popular  master  of  fiction  usually  will  be  found 
to  have  only  one  or  two  things  he  can  do  well,  only 
one  or  two  types  of  character  he  knows  well.  The 
same  types  are  constantly  recurring ;  so  that  you 
could  take  a  personage  out  of  a  novel,  substitute  the 
corresponding  personage  from  another  novel,  change 
no  essential  circumstances  of  the  plot,  and  produce 
the  same  effect.  One  favorite  novelist  is  said  to 
have  only  two  young  women;  indeed,  many  emi- 
nent novelists  have  hardly  more.  Dickens  may  be 
said  without  much  exaggeration  to  have  drawn  but 
one  nice  young  lady,  though  he  has  a  somewhat 
larger  variety  of  young  ladies  not  so  nice,  and  a 
still  larger  company  of  odd,  middle-aged  folk. 
George  Eliot  repeatedly  introduced  the  same  type 
of  character,  under  different  names,  with  only  slight 
variations :  thus  Hetty,  and  Tessa,  and  Eosamond 
Vincy  are  not  essentially  different  in  nature.  And 
if  the  novelist  write  with  a  purpose,  if  he  is  aiming 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     101 

to  enforce  any  truth  or  advance  any  cause,  this  di- 
dactic intention  is  likely  to  narrow  still  further  the 
range  of  his  literary  effects.  That,  indeed,  is  one 
objection  not  only  to  the  purpose-novel,  but  to  the 
intrusion  of  a  marked  didactic  tendency  in  any  lit- 
erature. Those  writers  have  usually  the  widest 
range  who  are  most  purely  objective  and  imper- 
sonal, who  seem  to  view  life  impartially  with  a 
view  only  to  recording  or  interpreting  it.  Walter 
Scott's  claim  to  high  place  rests  largely  upon  this 
objective  breadth  of  work.  He  is,  doubtless,  some- 
what lacking  in  force,  in  emotional  intensity  and 
moral  earnestness ;  he  does  not  seem  to  feel  very 
deeply  on  any  subject  and  does  not,  therefore,  make 
us  feel  deeply.  But  in  his  novels  —  not  in  his 
poetry  —  he  has  created  a  large  number  of  really 
different  characters,  invented  a  remarkable  variety 
of  incident  and  situation,  and  has,  therefore,  touched 
a  correspondingly  wide  range  of  emotion.  Of  course 
the  supreme  example  of  breadth  is  Shakspere.  The 
more  we  read,  the  more  that  wonder  grows.  His  was 
not,  to  be  sure,  a  universal  mind.  "Wide  as  was  his 
comprehension,  there  were  types  of  character  he 
could  not  conceive,  motives  for  action  he  could 
not  appreciate,  sources  of  feeling  he  could  not  com- 
mand. It  may  be  doubted,  for  example,  whether 
Buoh  a  character  as  thai  of  Shelley  could  ever  have 
entered  the  study  of  his  imagination.  Nor.  though 
he  lived  in  an  age  of  religious  ferment,  does  there 
seem  to  be  any  person  in  his  world  who  is  actuated 


102     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

throughout  by  distinctly  religious  motives.  Yet 
the  marvel  remains  that  he  has  imagined  a  wider 
variety  of  characters,  has  created  more  indepen- 
dent, self-centred,  clearly  individualized  men  and 
women,  has  sympathized  intimately  with  a  wider 
range  of  passion,  and  so  touched  more  springs  of 
feeling  than  any  other  writer  that  ever  lived.  He 
can,  doubtless,  be  surpassed  by  some  one  at  every 
other  point  but  this;  here  he  is  unrivalled  and 
alone. 

5.  The  estimate  of  literature,  as  determined  by 
its  power  over  the  emotions,  depends,  lastly,  upon 
the  Hank  or  Quality  of  the  emotions.  Here  we 
touch  questions  upon  which  there  has  been  much 
critical  debate.  For  to  say  that  literary  values 
depend  upon  the  quality  or  rank  of  the  emotions 
to  which  appeal  is  made  is,  of  course,  to  imply 
that  there  is  a  higher  and  lower  among  these  emo- 
tions. But  if  this  is  admitted,  what  is  the  stand- 
ard ?  What  kind  of  emotions  shall  we  call  the 
higher,  and  what  the  lower?  It  is  on  this  ques- 
tion that  critics  are  by  no  means  agreed.  It  would 
seem  obvious  that  we  do  instinctively  rank  some 
emotions  higher  in  kind  than  others.  All  the 
feelings  to  which  literature  may  make  appeal  are, 
indeed,  in  some  sense,  "noble"  —  as  Mr.  Kuskin 
calls  them ;  but  some  are  better  entitled  to  this 
designation  than  others.  We  say  it  is  but  "  a  step 
from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous,"  implying  that 
it  is  a  step  down.     The  sublime  and  the  ridiculous 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     103 

are  both  legitimate  emotions  in  literature;  but 
everybody  recognizes  that  they  are  of  different 
value.  So  the  emotion  which  arises  from  the 
purely  formal  element  in  literature,  from  its  music 
and  rhythm,  is  a  legitimate  emotion,  —  the  effect 
of  poetry  very  largely  depends  upon  it.  Yet  it 
is  undeniably  of  lower  rank  than  the  emotion 
arising  from  the  meaning  or  content  of  the  verse. 
Is  not  Coleridge's  Kubla  Khan,  written  in  an 
opium-dream  and  without  any  clear  or  coherent 
meaning  but  with  a  ravishing  music,  a  lower  order 
of  poetry  than  Wordsworth's  Ode  on  the  Intima- 
tions of  Immortality  ?  And  is  it  not  lower  princi- 
pally because  the  emotions  it  excites  are  not  only 
different  in  kind  but  inferior  in  rank  ?  This 
would  seem  undeniable.  Yet  now  and  then  a 
critic  is  so  far  committed  to  a  narrowly  aesthetic 
theory  of  poetry  as  to  uphold  a  proposition  almost 
the  opposite  of  this.  For  instance,  Mr.  Walter 
Pater,  in  a  very  interesting  essay,1  holds  that 
music  is  the  most  typical  of  all  arts,  because 
music  —  as  we  have  already  noticed  —  appeals 
to  the  emotions  directly  without  meaning  any- 
thing ;  and  all  the  other  arts,  he  contends,  poetry 
included,  aspire  toward  this  condition  of  music, 
ami  approach  perfection  just  in  the  degree  that 
they  approximate  this  ideal,  losing  definite  sig- 
nificance   for   the    intelligence    and    touching    the 

1  "The  School  oi  Glorgione,"  originally  printed  In  Th>-  Fort> 
nightly  h'rview,  October,  1*87. 


104    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

emotions  immediately.  Thus  he  says :  "  Lyrical 
poetry  ...  is,  at  least  artistically,  the  highest 
and  most  complete  form  of  poetry.  And  the  very 
perfection  of  such  poetry  often  seems  to  depend  in 
part  on  a  certain  suppression  or  vagueness  of  mere 
subject,  so  that  the  definite  meaning  almost  expires 
or  reaches  us  through  ways  not  distinctly  trace- 
able by  the  understanding."  But  it  would  seem 
that  this  is  carrying  the  rules  and  standards  that 
belong  to  one  art  over  into  another,  where  they  do 
not  apply.  In  opposition  to  all  such  views,  the 
sane  good  sense  of  the  world  demands  as  a  first 
requisite  of  poetry  or  any  other  form  of  literature 
that  it  mean  something;  and  insists  that  all  musi- 
cal or  other  formal  qualities,  however  needful,  are 
subordinate  and  accessory,  and  that  the  emotion 
excited  by  such  qualities  is  of  lower  rank  than 
that  flowing  directly  from  the  thought  or  passion 
of  the  work.  If,  then,  any  poetry  derives  its  only 
or  its  chief  power  over  our  emotions  from  such 
rhythmical  or  formal  qualities, — as,  let  us  say, 
some  of  Swinburne's  does,  —  that  poetry  cannot  be 
of  the  highest  rank. 

There  are  forms  of  literature  that  produce  their 
effects  chiefly  by  reproducing  in  memory  or  imagi- 
nation pleasurable  sensation.  Literature  may  rep- 
resent in  this  way  the  pleasures  of  any  of  the 
senses,  even  of  touch  and  taste.  But  as  there  is 
an  order  in  the  dignity  of  the  senses,  touch  and 
taste  having  less  suggestive  power  and  being  as  a 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     105 

rule  sensations  that  cannot  be  shared  with  others, 
the  poetry  that  derives  its  charm  from  the  repre- 
sentation of  these  sensations  would  not  be  felt  to 
be  of  high  rank.  Passages  in  considerable  num- 
bers might  be  quoted  from  Keats,  like  this  familiar 
one,  exquisite  in  their  way,  but  too  exclusively 
concerned  with  the  pleasures  of  the  lower  senses 
to  rank  as  very  great  poetry. 

41  And  still  she  slept  an  azure-lidded  sleep 
In  blanclied  linen,  smooth,  and  lavender'd, 
While  he  from  forth  the  closet  brought  a  heap 
Of  candied  apple,  quince,  and  plum,  and  gourd ; 
With  jellies  soother  than  the  creamy  curd, 
And  lucent  syrups,  tinct  with  cinnamon  ; 
Manna  and  dates,  in  argosy  transferr'd 
From  Fez  ;  and  spiced  dainties,  every  one, 
From  silken  Samarcand  to  cedared  Lebanon." 

And  even  here  it  will  be  noticed  how  Keats,  lest 
his  dainties  should  smack  too  much  of  the  confec- 
tioner's, appeals  to  our  higher  senses  and  imagina- 
tion in  that  last  lovely  line,  which  opens  all  the 
bright,  wide  East.  So,  too,  when  literature  repro- 
ducea  the  pleasures  of  sight  and  hearing,  if  it  stop 
with  the  sensuous  charm,  if  it  have  no  further 
Spiritual  suggestiveness,  by  general  admission  the 
emotions  it  excites  are  not  of  the  highest  rank. 
The  beauty  of  the  natural  world,  for  instance, 
may  be  disclosed  with  very  urreat  vividness  before 
the  imagination,  but  with  little  or  no 

"  Remoter  charm  by  thought  supplied." 


106     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

Keats  again  would  furnish  us  numerous  examples 
of  this.  No  English  poet  ever  surpassed  him  in 
the  power  to  bring  before  the  imagination  beauti- 
ful pictures  of  the  world  of  sense  for  their  own 
sake,  simply  because  they  are  beautiful.  Thus  to 
render  for  us  at  once  the  sensuous  beauty  of  the 
world  and  the  poet's  own  keen  sense  of  delight 
in  it,  is,  we  may  admit,  a  rare  gift.  Yet  if  we 
compare  the  emotion  derived  from  poetry  of  this 
kind,  however  exquisite,  with  that  derived,  let  us 
say,  from  reading  a  great  tragedy  of  Shakspere,  is 
it  not  evident  that  there  is  a  difference  between 
them  which  we  cannot  better  describe  than  by  say- 
ing it  is  a  difference  in  rank?  Nor  need  we  go  to 
such  widely  contrasted  examples  to  feel  this  differ- 
ence. The  emotional  value  of  such  purely  sensu- 
ous nature-poetry  as  that  of  Keats  is  certainly  of  a 
lower  rank  than  that  of  Wordsworth's  best  verse, 
in  which  the  external  charm  of  nature  is  informed 
with  some  spiritual  power  and  significance. 

The  ground  of  the  distinction  is  manifest.  Emo- 
tions excited  by  moral  qualities,  or  by  the  moral 
suggestions  of  material  things,  are  higher  in  rank 
than  those  excited  by  purely  material  or  sensible 
things.  More  briefly,  moral  emotion  is  of  higher 
literary  value  than  purely  sensuous  or  aesthetic 
emotion.  Admiration  for  a  heroic  action,  a  great 
passion,  a  sublime  endurance,  is  nobler  in  kind,  and 
so  worth  more  in  literature,  than  admiration  for 
sensuous  loveliness,  however  exquisitely  felt  or  ex- 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     107 

pressed.  The  term  moral  emotion  is  used  here,  not 
in  its  narrowest  sense  as  the  emotion  flowing  from 
the  approval  of  an  act  as  right  or  its  disapproval 
as  wrong,  but  in  its  wider  meaning,  as  the  emotion 
excited  by  the  qualities,  action,  or  character  of 
moral  beings,  the  emotion  which  is  some  form 
of  our  sympathy  with  life.  Matthew  Arnold,  in 
one  of  his  most  familiar  essays,  uses  the  word  in 
exactly  the  sense  here  given  to  it.  Having  said 
that  English  poetry  deals  preeminently  with  moral 
ideas,  he  continues :  "  A  large  sense  is  of  course  to 
be  given  to  the  term  moral.  "Whatever  bears  upon 
the  epiestion  '  how  to  live '  comes  under  it. 

"  '  Nor  love  thy  life,  nor  hate  ;  but,  what  thou  liv'st 
Live  well ;  how  long  or  short,  permit  to  heaven.' 

In  those  fine  lines  Milton  utters,  as  every  one  at 
once  perceives,  a  moral  idea.  Yes,  but  so,  too, 
when  Keats  consoles  the  forward-bending  lover  on 
the  Grecian  Urn,  the  lover  arrested  and  presented 
in  immortal  relief  by  the  sculptor's  hand  before 
he  can  kiss,  with  the  line  — 

*'  '  Forever  wilt  thou  love  and  she  be  fair '  — 

he  utters  a  moral   idea.      "When  Shakspere   says 

that  4 

"  'We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep,' 

he  utters  a  moral  idea."  1 

i  "  Wordsworth,"  Kssays  in  Criticism,  Second  Series. 


X08    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

We  may  lay  it  down  as  a  rule,  then,  that  those 
emotions  which  are  intimately  related  to  the  con- 
duct of  life  are  of  higher  rank  than  those  which 
are  not ;  and  that,  consequently,  the  emotions  high- 
est of  all  are  those  related  to  the  deciding  forces  of 
life,  the  affections  and  the  conscience.  There  is  no 
surer  test  of  the  permanent  worth  of  a  book  than 
this  —  Does  it  move  our  sympathy  with  the  deep- 
est things  of  human  life  ?  If  it  does  not,  whatever 
other  virtues  it  may  have,  it  is  not  great  literature. 

If  this  be  true,  the  highest  literature  must  always 
have  a  distinctly  ethical  character.  And  it  has ;  not 
a  didactic,  but  an  ethical  character.  Other  things 
being  equal,  that  literature  must  be  the  best  which 
excites  such  emotions  as  tend  to  invigorate  and 
enlarge  our  nature  —  in  a  word,  healthy  emotions. 
We  must  dissent  entirely  from  those  critics  who 
would  measure  literature,  as  well  as  art,  by  its 
power  to  give  an  order  of  pleasures  with  which, 
as  they  claim,  morality  has  nothing  to  do.  The 
maxim  "  Art  for  Art's  sake  "  is  meaningless,  and 
is  employed  usually  as  an  apology  for  a  weak  or 
licentious  art.  Art  exists  not  for  its  own  sake,  but 
to  minister  to  the  pleasures  of  man ;  and  that  art 
certainly  is  highest  which  ministers  to„the  highest 
pleasures.  It  is  folly,  therefore,  to  set  up  a  purely 
unmoral  standard  for  art,  or  to  expect  any  wide 
range  of  artistic  excellence  without  regard  to  ethi- 
cal conditions.  Whoever  tries  to  do  that  is  pretty 
sure  to  descend  to  the  use  of  lower  or  coarser  artis- 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     109 

tic  motives,  or  to  lavish  his  effort  upon  mere  arti- 
sanship;  whatever  school  of  literature  trios  to  do 
it  is  doomed  to  feebleness  and  narrowness,  to  ex- 
clusion from  the  great  passions  and  the  higher 
interests  of  mankind. 

This  tendency  to  measure  literature  by  a  purely 
unmoral  standard  is,  however,  so  persistent  that  it 
may  be  well  to  notice,  in  passing,  the  three  facts 
that  explain  it  and  give  it  plausibility.  In  the 
first  place,  it  arises  from  a  disposition  to  transfer 
to  literature  the  principles  and  the  rules  of  judg- 
ment that  apply  to  other  arts.  Music,  for  instance, 
—  as  already  remarked,  —  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
any  distinct  moral  quality.  Its  emotions  are  more 
or  less  keen  in  degree,  and  very  various  in  kind ; 
but  they  have  no  such  definite  relation  to  conduct 
as  gives  them  strictly  moral  quality.  Painting  and 
sculpture,  likewise,  have  it  for  a  large  part  of  their 
function  to  gratify  the  love  of  form  and  color;  it 
would  be  too  much  to  say  that  they  have  no  moral 
quality,  but  the  satisfaction  of  purely  aesthetic  de- 
sire is  properly  made  more  prominent  in  them  than 
literature. 

Secondly,  it  may  be  conceded  that  the  advocates 
of  "Art  for  Art's  Bake  "  arc  right  in  their  claim 
that  the  higher  forms  of  literature  do  not  spring 
primarily  from  moral  intention.  The  poet  does 
not  write  from  a  didactic  motive;  if  he  should,  he 
would  pass  into  the  preacher,  and  his  song  turn 
out  a  sermon.     They  are  right,  too,  iu  asserting  that 


HO     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

definite  moral  quality  is  not  essential  to  literature. 
There  may  be  poetry,  for  example,  and  exquisite 
poetry,  of  which  you  can  hardly  predicate  any 
moral  quality.  They  are  wrong  only  when  they 
claim  that  it  is  by  such  non-moral  values  exclu- 
sively that  literature  must  be  measured. 

Thirdly,  it  may  be  admitted  to  be  very  seldom, 
in  literature  at  least,  that  any  emotion  is  entirely 
without  moral  quality.  We  speak  of  the  emotion 
arising  from  the  sight,  or  the  imaginative  represen- 
tation, of  material  beauty,  as  purely  aesthetic ;  but 
even  this  emotion  almost  always  has  some  moral 
suggestiveness.  Whatever  is  beautiful  to  the 
senses,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous  chapter, 
hints  some  corresponding  moral  quality.  Sensi- 
ble beauty  is  therefore  constantly  used  in  art  as  a 
means  to  awaken  more  distinctively  moral  feeling, 
and  to  deepen  that  feeling  whenever  it  is  excited. 
And  thus  it  results  that  the  poetry  which  is  most 
rich  in  moral  quality,  most  powerful  in  its  appeal 
to  our  moral  sensitiveness,  is  never  bare  and  bald, 
but  abounds  in  varied  and  beautiful  imagery.  So 
in  our  memory  beautiful  sights  and  sounds  subtly 
associate  themselves  with  our  deepest  and  most 
tender  experience,  and  in  the  recollections  of  our 
reading  we  recall  along  with  the  love,  the  grief,  the 
passion,  that  has  thrilled  us  the  sensuous  charms 
in  which  it  seemed  embodied. 

"  How  near  to  good  is  what  is  fair! " 
says  one  of  the  wisest  of  our  elder  poets. 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     HI 

But  while  we  admit  that  moral  quality  is  not  an 
essential  of  literature,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand, 
almost  all  healthy  emotion  has  some  moral  affini- 
ties, we  must  still  insist  that  those  emotions  are 
highest  in  rank  which  are  most  distinctively  moral, 
and  that,  consequently,  the  highest  kind  of  litera- 
ture can  never  be  measured  by  purely  non-moral 
standards. 

Literary  principles  must,  of  course,  be  discussed 
in  this  book  from  the  standpoint  of  the  critic,  not 
of  the  moralist.  The  critic  cannot  indeed  ignore 
moral  quality,  but  he  regards  it  only  with  reference 
to  its  literary  value.  He  asks  simply,  How  shall 
the  writer  produce  the  highest  effects?  But  it 
may  not  be  improper,  in  closing  this  chapter,  even 
at  the  risk  of  departing  somewhat  from  the  field  of 
criticism,  to  consider  briefly  the  relations  of  litera- 
ture to  practical  morality. 

The  demand  of  morality  is  very  simple.  It 
demands  that  neither  the  writer  nor  any  one  else 
should  write  or  do  anything  which  shall  tend  to 
debase  the  affections,  sophisticate  or  deaden  the 
conscience,  enfeeble  the  will.  And  this  demand 
of  morality,  if  it  is  a  demand  at  all,  is  imperative  ; 
morality  is  BUpreme  in   human  nature,  or  it  is  not 

molality.  It  cannot  make  any  compromises ;  any- 
thing that  conflicts  with  it  must  yield.  Is  there, 
thru,  any  conflict  between  the  legitimate  aims  or 
means  of  literature  and  this  claim  of  morality  '.'     U 


112    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

the  poet  or  novelist  obeys  it,  will  he  find  the 
power  of  his  emotional  effects  cramped,  or  their 
scope  limited  ?  That  assertion  is  sometimes  made. 
Literature,  it  is  said,  in  its  widest  range  is  nothing 
less  than  the  depiction  of  human  life  ;  it  must 
show  the  whole  of  human  nature,  the  evil  as  well 
as  the  good,  the  wilder  and  darker  passions  as  well 
as  the  gentler  and  brighter  affections.  Art  de- 
mands full  play  over  all  the  field  of  life.  It  is  not 
trying  to  teach  a  lesson ;  it  has  no  other  end  but 
to  exhibit  what  it  can  see  or  imagine.  It  cannot, 
therefore,  be  restricted  by  any  limitations  of  mo- 
rality ;  morality  is  an  entirely  irrelevant  matter. 
The  dramatist,  the  novelist,  cannot  stop  to  ask 
whether  what  he  is  writing  will  tend  to  edification 
or  not ;  if  he  should,  the  range  of  artistic  possi- 
bilities would  be  sadly  narrowed  at  once.  We 
admire,  it  is  said,  many  things  which  are  not 
good.  We  admire  power,  whether  malign,  or  be- 
nign ;  we  admire  Napoleon,  Iago,  Satan.  Similarly 
we  admire  strong,  overmastering  passion,  though 
we  cannot  approve  it.  We  admire  Cleopatra  — 
he  must  be  either  more  or  less  than  man  who 
would  not;  we  admire  Lady  Macbeth.  To  this 
admiration,  it  is  urged,  literature  must  be  allowed 
to  appeal,  even  though  by  so  doing  it  may  often 
transgress  the  bounds  of  morality.  It  does  not 
know,  it  does  not  care,  what  shall  be  the  moral 
influence  of  its  depiction  ;  it  must  give  us  human 
character  and  action  —  any  of  it,  the  whole  of  it. 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     H3 

That  character  and  action  it  must  depict  truly, 
but  it  can  admit  no  other  obligation. 

To  all  this  we  answer,  first,  and  most  obviously, 
that  literature  depicts  human  life  and  character 
with  some  end  in  view;  not  merely  for  the  sake 
of  depicting  them.  And  the  end,  in  the  case  of 
the  forms  of  literature  especially  concerned  in 
this  discussion  —  poetry  and  fiction  —  is  to  awaken 
emotion.  But  if  the  depiction  of  any  phases  of 
human  life  arouse  only  unpleasant,  repulsive,  or 
degrading  emotions,  then  such  depiction  is  for- 
bidden by  the  purpose  of  literature  as  well  as  by 
the  laws  of  morality.  Such  a  rule  would  put 
under  ban  a  considerable  body  of  modern  fiction. 

Hut  it  may  be  readily  admitted  that  many  books 
present  the  qualifications  of  literature  in  a  high 
degree,  exhibiting  beauty  and  power  and  truth, 
showing,  moreover,  it  may  be,  remarkable  technical 
skill  in  handling,  while  yet  their  moral  influence  is 
not  altogether  good.  They  present  vice,  perhaps, 
in  such  way  as  to  be  seductive  —  that  is,  to  blind 
or  sophisticate  the  conscience  or  to  weaken  the 
will ;  or  they  diminish  respect  for  some  of  those 
laws  of  right  living  upon  which  the  moral  health 
of  society  depends.  The  question  is.  Is  this  neces- 
sary ?  Must  it  be  granted  to  be  impossible  in  any 
ease,   to  attain   the   highest    literary   effect   without 

disregard  of  moral  laws'.'    This  question  may  be 

Confidently  answered  in  the  negative.  Such  im- 
moral   Influence    is    never   really   B   pari    of    literarv 


114     PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

value,  nor  the  price  of  it.  The  books  are  great  not 
because  of  their  moral  deficiencies,  but  in  spite  of 
them.  In  some  of  the  work  of  Byron,  the  Don 
Juan,  for  instance,  or  in  the  poetry  of  De  Musset, 
there  is  great  brilliancy  of  imagination,  unusual 
sensitiveness  to  some  forms  of  beauty — wonderful 
strength  in  Byron,  wonderful  subtlety  and  grace 
in  De  Musset;  but  these  excellences  are  not 
heightened  by  the  license  with  which  both  poets 
are  chargeable.  There  is  no  reason  why  our  judg- 
ment upon  such  work  should  not  be  discriminating, 
recognizing  at  once  its  poetic  merits  and  its  moral 
defects  ;  but  we  need  not  admit  that  the  moral  de- 
fects are  essential  to  the  poetic  excellences  or  serve 
in  any  wise  to  heighten  them. 

And  if  it  is  said  that  the  poet  or  dramatist  or 
novelist  must  be  at  liberty  to  depict  the  whole 
range  of  human  character  and  action,  we  reply, 
Certainly  he  must,  subject  only  to  the  limitation 
that  he  does  it,  as  we  have  said,  with  a  view  to 
produce  legitimate  literary  emotion.  But  this 
liberty  involves  no  violation  of  practical  morality. 
The  poet's  work  may  exhibit  every  kind  of  un- 
righteousness and  still  be  moral.  And  more  than 
this  is  true.  The  depiction  will  not  have  high 
literary  value  unless  it  is  moral.  For,  notice, 
critics  of  every  school  insist  (as  we  shall  see  in 
a  following  chapter)  that  one  requisite  of  excel- 
lence in  any  depiction  of  human  life  is  truth, 
fidelity  to  the  laws  of  human  nature.      But   the 


THE  EMOTIONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     H5 

facts  of  man's  moral  nature  are  certainly  as  real 
and.  as  important  as  any  other  facts  —  nay,  in 
literature  they  are  of  supreme  importance.  At 
the  very  foundation  of  character  lie  the  moral 
intuitions,  at  the  foundation  of  any  scheme  of 
human  action,  the  moral  laws.  The  sentiment  of 
Duty  is  universal,  absolute.  Disobedience  to  it 
brings  inevitably  dulness  of  perception  and  weak- 
ness of  purpose,  dwarfs  all  noble  aspiration,  and 
ends  at  last  in  ruin.  These  are  facts;  let  the 
man  of  letters  be  true  to  them.  If  his  study  does 
not  reveal  them,  it  is  superficial;  if  it  misrepre- 
sent or  deny  them,  it  is  false.  Whenever  litera- 
ture becomes  blind  to  the  nature  and  results  of 
sin,  it  is  false  to  ultimate  facts,  and  so  offends 
not  only  against  morality,  but  against  art.  Art 
demands  truth;  morality  demands  nothing  more. 
It  follows  that  a  book  is  not  immoral  beeaxise  it 
is  full  of  pictures  of  sin,  nor  moral  because  it  is 
crammed  with  saints.  Shakspere's  Richard  III. 
is  a  moral  poem,  though  Richard  be  almost  a 
devil ;  while  some  very  immoral  novels  may  be 
found  still  in  Sunday-school  libraries.  Let  the 
jioet  show  us,  if  he  will,  the  whole  man,  howsoever 
bad,  if  he  will  only  show  him  truly.  Then  artis- 
tic admiration  of  the  character  and  moral  con- 
demnation of  it  will  go  together  as  they  ought 
—  indeed,  each  will  heighten  the  other.  No  man 
Of  culture  hut  enjoys  most  keenly  the  depiction 
Of    [ago;   no  man  of   honor  but  feels  an  inclination 


11 6     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

to  run  the  villain  through.  Admire  the  picture  of 
villany  —  that  is  not  immoral;  would  you  choose 
to  be  like  the  villain  yourself  —  that  is  the  test 
of  immorality. 

If  what  has  been  said  is  true,  it  is  evident  that 
the  obligation  to  a  healthy  morality  is  no  hin- 
drance to  the  highest  literary  attainment.  >  On  the 
contrary,  moral  sanity  and  what  Matthew  Arnold 
used  to  call  a  high  seriousness  are  always  charac- 
teristic of  really  great  literature.  It  must  be  so. 
The  tragedy  that  is  to  purify  the  soul  by  pity  or 
by  terror;  the  epic  that  is  to  show  the  highest 
reaches  of  human  action  on  the  wide  stage  of 
history  or  adventure;  the  comedy  that  is  to  dis- 
close the  springs  of  healthy  and  abiding  joy,  or 
expose  to  wholesome  ridicule  whatever  is  false  in 
life;  the  novel  that  would  give  us  a  moving  pic- 
ture of  life  as  men  and  women  are  now  living  it, 
in  the  circumstances  we  know  —  how  can  any  of 
them  be  true  if  they  ignore  the  deepest  facts  of 
human  nature  ?  How  can  they  be  true  if  written 
by  men  who  have  not  the  moral  power  to  esti- 
mate rightly  these  facts  ? 


CHAPTER   FOURTH 
The  Imagination 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  discussed  the 
qualities  of  emotion  as  a  measure  of  literary  value. 
Rut  this  discussion  suggests  a  further  question. 
Granted,  that  all  writing  to  be  properly  called  lit- 
erature must  awaken  some  emotion,  and  that  in 
certain  kinds  of  literature  —  such  as  poetry  —  this 
is  the  end  of  the  writing,  we  ask,  "What  are  the 
means  to  that  end?  How  shall  the  poet,  the 
dramatist,  the  novelist,  awaken  our  emotions  ? 

Not,  it  is  evident,  merely  by  talking  of  them. 
No  amount  of  discussion  of  joy  or  sorrow,  or  anger 
or  love,  can  ever  make  us  feel  those  emotions. 
It  is  true,  indeed,  that,  now  and  then,  readers  or 
hearers  predisposed  to  certain  emotions  seem  to 
get  a  sort,  of  stimulation  from  mere  words.  Glory, 
honor,  patriotism — the  orator  may  sometimes  arouse 
a  certain  enthusiasm  simply  by  the  utterance  of 
such  terms;  but  it  is  only  a  shallow  enthusiasm, 
and  already  half  excited.  The  train,  so  to  say.  is 
already  laid  in  ideas,  and  needs  only  a  glowing 
word  to  lire  it. 

Then,  too,  there  are  certain  kinds  of  literature, 
even  of  poetry,  that  do  not  aim  to  excite  emotion, 
117 


118     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

but  rather  to  express  it.  They  presuppose  the 
feeling,  and  only  give  it  becoming  utterance.  That, 
for  example,  is  the  purpose  of  hymns  —  or  ought 
to  be.  A  good  hymn  never  appeals  to  the  emotions 
of  the  reader  or  singer;  it  only  puts  into  sincere 
and  becoming  phrase  those  feelings  of  love  or  rev- 
erence or  aspiration  already  in  his  heart.  Hence 
any  of  the  means  by  which  the  poet  is  accustomed 
to  excite  our  feeling  are  here  almost  sure  to  seem 
out  of  place ;  the  first  note  of  rhetoric  will  spoil 
any  hymn.  This  is  one  reason  why  the  range  of 
literary  effect  in  devotional  verse  is  so  narrow. 

But,  to  return  to  our  question,  when  the  writer 
does  wish  to  arouse  emotion,  how  can  he  do  it? 
Not  by  talking  about  the  emotion,  not  even  by 
feeling  it  himself ;  he  must  shoio  «s  the  objects  that 
excite  the  emotion.  It  is  concrete  individual  things 
that  have  power  upon  our  feelings.  We  do  not 
feel,  because  we  do  not  see.  We  read  in  the  news- 
paper at  our  morning  coffee  that  five  thousand 
people  perished  in  an  earthquake  in  Japan  yester- 
day. "  How  frightful !  "  we  said ;  but  we  never 
turned  the  corners  of  our  mouth  in  any  real  feel- 
ing. We  did  not  see  the  calamity.  As  we  say 
often,  we  did  not  real-ize  it.  We  have  felt  more 
pity  for  some  fictitious  person  in  a  novel  than  for 
all  these  five  thousand  wretches  swallowed  alive. 
It  is  evidently  this  power  to  see  and  show  things 
in  the  concrete,  as  if  they  were  real,  that  holds  the 
key  to  our  emotions.     This  power  we  call  Imagi- 


THE   IMAGINATION  U;i 

nation.  It  is  the  most  essential  faculty  in  the 
equipment  of  the  poet,  dramatist,  novelist;  it  is 
necessary  to  every  man  of  letters. 

It  is  difficult  to  give  a  clear  definition  of  im- 
agination, partly  because  the  word  often  seems 
to  be  used  in  a  vague  and  mysterious  way,  as  if 
there  were  something  inexplicable  in  the  power 
it  names,  but  principally  because  the  same  word, 
Iind'j'inifinii,  is  used  to  cover  several  mental  pro- 
cesses, alike  but  by  no  means  the  same.  Rusk  in, 
indeed,  whose  discussion  of  the  Imagination 
i  Modern  Painters,  Part  III,  §  2,  Of  the  Imagi- 
native Faculty)  is  most  helpful  and  suggestive 
even  when  it  is  not  perfectly  clear,  says  at  the 
outset  of  that  discussion,  "  The  essence  of  the  Im- 
aginative Faculty  is  utterly  mysterious  and  inex- 
plicable, and  to  be  recognized  in  its  effects  only." 
But  this  would  seem  to  be  true  only  in  the  sense 
that  the  "  essence "  of  any  of  our  faculties  is 
"utterly  mysterious  and  inexplicable."  The  rela- 
tion of  any  physical  process,  like  a  nerve  change, 
for  instance,  to  a  mental  conception  is  absolutely 
inconceivable  —  utterly  mysterious  and  inexplica- 
ble, lint  it  cannot  be  impossible  to  state  what 
we  mean  by  imagination,  to  describe  the  faculty 
—  as  wr  must  all  others  —  in  terms  of  its  results. 
When  we  attempt  to  do  so,  however,  we  shall 
find  that  there  is  more  than  one  process  to  which 
we  apply  the  common  term   Imagination, 

I  may  frame  iu  my  miml  a   picture  of  an  animal 


120     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

with  the  head  of  a  bird  and  the  body  of  a  dog; 
that  act  would  probably  be  called  imagination, 
though  if  I  simply  called  to  mind  the  image  of 
a  bird  and  of  a  dog,  that  I  had  seen,  that  would 
be  only  visual  memory.  Or,  if  I  formed  in  mind 
the  picture  of  a  creature  with  the  head  of  a  man 
and  the  body  of  a  horse,  that  would  be  only  mem- 
ory, for  I  should  be  only  recalling  the  picture  of 
a  centaur  I  had  seen.  If  a  sculptor  frame  a  men- 
tal image  of  a  figure  he  is  to  carve  from  a  block 
of  marble,  that  is  imagination.  If  I  form  a  pic- 
ture of  a  landscape,  introducing  hills  that  shut  in 
a  valley,  a  river  flowing  through  the  valley,  pas- 
tures sprinkled  with  cattle  and  bordered  by  trees ; 
if  I  have  never  actually  seen  this  landscape  and 
if  I  do  now  seem  to  see  it  before  my  mind's  eye, 
not  merely  catalogue  its  items  intellectually,  then 
this  process  is  imagination. 

In  such  instances  the  elements  combined  by  the 
act  of  imagination  are  comparatively  few,  and  are 
all  elements  of  sense  perception  —  given  by  the 
sense  of  sight.  But  all  the  more  noteworthy 
forms  of  the  imagination  go  much  further  than 
this.  The  dramatist  or  novelist,  we  say,  creates 
a  character,  a  man  or  woman.  Doubtless  there 
are  in  the  character  so  created  no  elements  which 
have  not  singly,  or  in  other  combinations,  come 
within  the  observation  of  the  author  who  "  creates  " 
the  character ;  but  this  combination  of  them  is 
new.      There  was  never  such  a  man  before;   the 


THE   IMAGINATION  121 

dramatist  has  created  him.  And,  moreover,  the 
creating  of  the  character  is  not  an  intellectual 
process  of  abstraction,  synthesis,  and  inference. 
The  dramatist  does  not  select  certain  qualities, 
put  them  together,  and  then  infer  what  would 
happen ;  that  is  the  method  of  the  philosopher 
or  jurist.  The  dramatist  sees  his  man,  the  con- 
crete individual  man  that  he  has  himself  created, 
very  much  in  the  same  way  that  he  sees  and 
knows  his  absent  neighbor.  He  realizes  the  man. 
Now  this  process,  of  course,  is  imagination,  and  a 
much  higher  form  of  it  than  that  exemplified  in 
either  of  the  other  cases.  The  elements  combined 
are  more  numerous  and  the  whole  formed  vastly 
more  complex.  But  in  all  of  the  cases  the  nature 
of  the  process  is  the  same,  implying  the  abstrac- 
tion of  certain  parts  or  qualities,  and  a  selection 
and  combination  of  them  into  new  wholes.  It  is 
to  be  noticed,  however,  —  and  here,  I  suspect, 
what  Ruskin  calls  the  mystery  of  the  imagination 
enters,  —  that  this  process  of  abstraction,  selection, 
combination,  is  mostly  not  a  conscious  one.  The 
wholes,  though  they  must  doubtless  be  formed  of 
elements  gathered  in  our  experience,  seem  to 
spring  into  existence  spontaneously.  The  poet 
does  not  laboriously  piece  together  out  of  his 
treasured  experience  the  creatures  of  his  imagina- 
tion: they  Dome  to  him.  The  elements  of  which 
they  are  made  seem  to  unite  according  to  some 
laws     of     spontaneous    combination    not    entirely 


122    PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

under  the  control  of  the  will.  "  Imagine,"  says 
Ruskin,  speaking  of  poets  and  artists,  "imagine  all 
that  any  of  these  men  had  seen  or  heard  in  the 
whole  course  of  their  lives,  laid  up  accurately  in 
their  memory  as  in  vast  storehouses,  extending 
with  the  poets  even  to  the  slightest  intonations 
of  syllables  heard  in  the  beginnings  of  their  lives, 
and  with  painters  down  to  minute  folds  of  drapery 
and  shapes  of  leaves  or  stones;  and  over  all  this 
unindexed  and  immeasurable  mass  of  treasure, 
the  imagination  brooding  and  wandering,  but 
dream-gifted  so  as  to  summon  at  any  moment  such 
groups  of  ideas  as  shall  exactly  fit  each  other." 
This  description  is  itself,  as  Ruskin  indicates,  a 
piece  of  imagination ;  but  it  illustrates  the  way 
in  which,  out  of  the  miscellaneous  and  unorgan- 
ized stores  of  experience,  the  shapes  of  poetic 
imagination  may  spontaneously  arise. 

When  it  is  seen  that  all  the  elements  of  expe- 
rience, of  whatever  kind,  may  thus  be  recombined 
into  new  wholes,  it  is  evident  that  the  possibili- 
ties of  imaginative  creation  are  infinite.  The 
actual  life  of  every  individual  may  expand  and 
multiply  itself  without  limit  in  this  ideal  realm. 
In  fact,  the  imagination  does  enter,  to  a  greater  or 
less  degree,  into  almost  all  our  mental  activity. 
It  is  the  faculty  that  coordinates  the  isolated  facts 
of  life.  We  are  forever  putting  things  together 
in  our  thought,  in  ideal  shapes;  continually  won- 
dering  how  something  might  have  been,  or  how 


THE   IMAGINATION  123 

it  may  yet  be.  In  most  men's  minds  the  resulting 
conceptions  are  not  vivid  enough  to  make  any 
permanent  impression  on  their  feelings  or  play  an 
important  part  in  their  recognized  inner  life ;  but 
the  poet  or  novelist  knows  how  to  make  his  im- 
agined world  more  thrilling  and  vivid,  even  to  us, 
than  the  real  one. 

It  is  in  dreams  that  our  experience  seems  to  be 
recast  in  most  vivid  and  original  shapes.  But 
when  we  try,  after  we  have  waked,  to  recall  these 
creations  of  our  dreams,  we  usually  find  that  they 
were  in  the  last  degree  improbable  or  irrational. 
Yet  they  did  not  seem  so  while  we  were  dreaming. 
For  though  we  are  often  terrified  and  delighted 
in  dreams,  we  are  never  really  surprised.  We 
seem  to  have  lost,  for  the  time,  all  power  to  com- 
pare things,  or  measure  them  by  any  rational 
standard.  Our  imagination  is  active,  but  our 
reason  is  asleep.  Now  the  waking  imagination 
sometimes  gives  us  such  dreamlike  results,  capri- 
cious, irrational,  not  conformed  to  known  laws  of 
nature ;  but  then  we  call  it  Fancy.  Fancy  is  sane 
imagination  voluntarily  working  without  check  or 
guidance  from   reason. 

In  all  these  cases,  the  act  of  imagination  seems 
to  be  a  combination  j  but  us  the  process  is  largely 
spontaneous,  and  as  the  wholes  formed  are  new. 
tli is  mode  of  Imagination  may  be  called  Creative. 

We   may   then   briefly  define   it  thus:    The  Creative 

Imagination  spontaneously  selects  among  t'. 


124    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

given  by  experience  and  combines  them  into  neio 
wholes.  If  this  combination  be  arbitrary  or  irrational, 
the  faculty  is  called  Fancy. 

But  there  are  other  and  somewhat  different 
processes  to  which  we  apply  the  same  term, 
Imagination.  As  I  write  these  lines  I  see  again 
that  tree  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter  as  an 
example  of  beauty.  It  was  bright  with  all  the 
hues  of  autumn  then ;  it  is  bare,  leafless,  and  gaunt 
now,  and  its  naked  limbs  sway  restlessly  against 
a  gray  sky.  I  notice  the  contrast,  and  I  can 
express  it  literally  —  as  I  have.  But  a  great  poet 
saw  the  same  thing  once,  and  he  put  it  differently 
—  as  it  would  never  have  occurred  to  me  to  put  it. 

"  That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  behold, 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the  cold,  — 
Bare  ruin'd  choirs  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang." 

Now  what  is  the  mental  process  here  ?  Not 
quite  the  same  as  that  we  have  termed  creative. 
It  is  rather  what — borrowing  a  term  from  Buskin1 

1  But  with  a  different  meaning.  Ruskin  uses  the  adjective 
to  characterize  a  form  of  imagination  more  nearly  like  what 
is  here  called  Creative.  It  will  be  seen  that,  though  he  de- 
scribes three  modes  of  imagination  ("  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  II., 
Part  III.),  his  analysis  is  quite  different  from  that  given  here. 
That,  I  fear,  argues  presumption  in  me.  I  can  only  say  that 
while  Raskin's  treatment  of  the  imagination  is  more  sugges- 
tive than  any  other  I  know,  I  have  never  felt  sure  that  I  under- 
stood the  distinction  he  makes  between  the  terms  Imagination 
Penetrative  and  Imagination  Contemplative. 


THE   IMAGINATION  125 

—  we  may  call  Associative.  The  sight  of  the  tree 
and  the  thought  of  its  change  call  into  the  mind 
of  the  poet  instantly  other  images  that  we  recog- 
nize as  in  harmony  with  the  object  seen  because 
producing  the  same  emotional  effects.  The  sight 
of  the  tree  so  changed  from  what  it  was  suggests 
vaguely  loneliness,  desertion,  the  transiency  of  all 
beauty ;  and  every  image  that  the  poet's  imagina- 
tion associates  with  it  heightens  that  effect. 

"  Yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  that  shake  against  the  cold." 

The  very  word  hang  is  imaginative.  The  leaves 
are  not  growing  on  the  tree,  as  a  living  part  of 
it  now,  they  hang  —  which  implies  their  lifeless- 
ness.     "  Those  boughs  that  shake  against  the  cold  " 

—  here  the  chill  of  the  sky,  and  the  tremor  of  the 
branches  as  if  conscious  of  that  chill,  are  used 
to  heighten  the  central  emotional  effect.  And 
finally,  the  lonely  silence  of  to-day  is  intensified 
by  throwing  into  contrast  witli  it  that  sound 
which  more  than  anything  else  in  nature  suggests 
life,  joy,  and  freedom  —  the  united  song  of  birds 
among  the  leafage  of  trees, — 

"Bare  ruinM  choirs  where  Into  the  sweet  birds  sang." 

Thus  wonderfully  can  the  poet  heighten  the  emo- 
tional impression  of  an  object  by  calling  into  as- 
sociation with  it  other  images  thai  tend  to  produce 
the  same  or  allied  emotions.  This,  then,  is  another 
and  very  important  function  of  the  imagination. 


126     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

Notice  that  in  this  case  it  is  an  emotional  im- 
pulse which  calls  the  imagination  into  activity. 
The  poet  first  feels  the  emotion  suggested  by  the 
tree,  and  that  calls  into  his  thought  other  images 
which  deepen  the  initial  emotion.  The  fitness  and 
harmony  of  the  images  are  insured  by  the  fact  that 
they  all  spring  from  the  same  feeling  in  the  poet. 
Indeed,  in  this  particular  case,  it  was  not  the  tree 
that  suggested  the  original  emotion  to  the  poet,  but 
the  emotion  that  suggested  the  tree,  — 

"That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  behold." 

It  is  the  regret  at  the  conscious  approach  of  age, 
the  loss  of  youthful  vigor  and  passion,  —  that  most 
pathetic  because  most  inevitable  of  misfortunes,  — 
which  the  poet  feels ;  and  this  instantly  calls  up 
such  objects  as  seem  to  embody  the  same  feeling. 
But  whether  the  initial  emotion  be  excited  by 
some  outward  object,  or,  as  is  oftener  the  case,  by 
some  inner  experience,  emotion  is  always  at  the 
bottom  of  this  exercise  of  imagination,  and  insures 
the  harmony  of  the  images  associated. 

When  the  poet  associates  images  that  do  not 
spring  from  a  common  ground  of  emotion,  but  are 
related  only  by  accidental  or  external  similarities, 
that,  again,  is  an  exercise  of  fancy  rather  than  of 
imagination.  Sometimes,  in  a  person  of  not  very 
quick  sense  of  beauty  and  of  intellectual  rather 
than  emotional  temperament,  this  exercise  of  fancy 
gives  us   a  profusion  of   those   emotionally  inapt 


THE   IMAGINATION  127 

similes  and  metaphors  which  the  rhetorician  calls 
"conceits."  The  so-called  "Metaphysical  Poets" 
at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  will 
furnish  us  with  an  abundance  of  examples.  Thus 
Dr.  Donne,  thinking  of  death  as  the  separation  of 
the  soul  from  the  body,  compares  it  to  the  firing  off 
of  a  gun,  the  unbinding  of  a  pack,  the  mending  of 
a  clock,  the  hatching  of  an  egg.  On  the  other 
hand^  in  a  person  of  quick  sense  of  beauty  and  just 
feeling,  this  exercise  of  fancy,  though  always  in- 
ferior in  effect  on  the  emotions  to  the  imagina- 
tion, may  be  very  pleasing  and  graceful;  as  when 
Wordsworth,  in  twenty  lines,  calls  the  daisy  a  nun, 
a  maiden,  a  queen,  a  beggar,  a  star  —  and  might 
have  called  it  a  score  of  other  things  as  vagrant 
similes  occurred  to  him  in  a  mood  of  reverie. 

We  may,  then,  describe  this  mode  of  the  imagi- 
nation by  saying  that, —  The  Associative  Imagina- 
tion associates  with  an  object,  idea,  or  emotion  imagi  a 
emotional/)/  akin,  if  such  association  be  not  based 
on  emotional  kinsltij),  the  process  must  be  called 
Fancy. 

The  last  stanza  of  Wordsworth's  poem  on  the 
daisy,  just  referred  to,  will  afford  an  example  of  a 
third  form  of  the  imagination. 

"Sweet  flower !    For  by  that  name  at  last, 
When  all  my  reveries  are  past, 
I  call  thee,  and  t.>  that  bold  hat. 

&ictct,  sill  nt  c/v  attire, 


128    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

That  breath'st  with  me  in  sun  and  air 
Do  thou,  as  thou  art  wont,  repair 
My  heart  with  gladness,  and  a  share 
Of  thy  meek  nature." 

Here  the  fancy  has  changed  to  imagination,  but  a 
somewhat  different  mode  of  imagination  from  that 
seen  in  either  of  the  previous  cases.  There  is  now 
no  creation  of  new  wholes,  no  calling  in  of  other 
images  of  like  emotional  effect ;  the  lines  render 
directly"  the  real  significance  of  the  thing  to  our 
emotions.  The  daisy  is  not  compared  to  anything 
else,  it  is  not  like  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing,  that 
the  fancy  may  put  beside  it ;  it  is  a  "  sweet  silent 
creature";  it  can  share  with  us  its  "own  meek 
nature."  Now  when  the  poet  thus  sees  the  real 
character  of  a  thing,  and,  so  to  speak,  describes  it 
by  its  spiritual  effects,  that  also  we  call  imagina- 
tion. So  considered,  the  imagination  is  not  so 
much,  as  in  the  previous  cases,  a  process  of  crea- 
tion or  of  association,  but  rather  a  process  of  inter- 
pretation. It  now  seems  to  be  primarily  a  form  of 
insight  or  intuition,  and  can  be  most  accurately 
described  as  the  perception  of  spiritual  values. 

And  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  us  that  this 
perception  of  spiritual  values  is  all  that  gives  sig- 
nificance to  most  of  our  sensational  experiences,  and 
that  without  it  life  would  hardly  be  worth  the  liv- 
ing. You  gaze  upon  a  beautiful  landscape  spread 
before  you ;  you  look  around  and  above  you  in 
the  silence  of  a  midsummer  night ;   you  stand  by 


THE   IMAGINATION  129 

the  seashore  and  watch  its  eternal  monotonous 
restlessness  —  what  do  you  see  ?  Nothing  but  cer- 
tain colors.  The  dog  that  stands  beside  you  —  ex- 
cept for  the  different  visual  angle  of  his  eyes  and 
the  fact  that  they  are  two  feet  above  the  ground 
instead  of  six  —  sees,  it  is  probable,  precisely  the 
same  things  that  you  do ;  he  has,  at  all  events,  the 
same  visual  mechanism.  But  it  is  not,  in  strict- 
ness, what  you  see  that  moves  you,  elevates  you, 
and  if  you  can  tell  it,  moves  and  elevates  others. 
Nor  will  you  come  any  nearer  to  finding  out  what 
it  is  that  moves  you  by  analyzing  what  you  call 
the  object  of  sight  into  its  elements.  That  will  give 
you  only  certain  amounts  of  rock,  water,  vegetation, 
or,  if  you  carry  your  analysis  further,  objectively, 
certain  amounts  of  chemical  elements  combined 
so  and  so;  or,  if  subjectively,  certain  sensations  in 
such  and  such  an  order.  That  kind  of  process  will 
never  explain  the  power  of  what  you  see.  Quartz 
cannot  generate  quietude  of  soul,  nor  H20  bring 
calm  upon  the  mind.  The  object  as  a  whole,  as  a 
concrete  thing,  moves  you  by  a  power  not  revealed 
by  any  analysis,  by  a  power  which  cannot  be  con- 
ceived as  other  than  a  spiritual  power.  Now  it 
would  not  be  accurate  to  say  that  the  mere  emotion 
which  such  an  object,  a  landscape,  for  example,  can 
give  is  imagination,  though  susceptibility  to  such 
emotion  in  any  high  degree  usually  implies  imagi- 
nation also.  Imagination  enters  as  soon  as  there 
is  any  perception  of  the  spiritual  significance  and 


130     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

value  which  is  the  real  cause  of  the  emotion.  But 
when  the  mind  tries  to  express  this  perception,  to 
show  as  well  as  see,  then  it  finds  at  once  that 
imagination  in  a  more  complete  form  is  necessary. 
For  it  must  now  see,  not  in  vague,  half-conscious 
way,  but  clearly  and  definitely,  those  qualities  of 
the  object  in  which  its  real  meaning  and  power 
reside,  and  must  render  the  object  by  those  quali- 
ties. Thus  Wordsworth  calls  the  daisy  a  "  sweet 
silent  creature."  Why  silent?  Of  course  the  daisy 
is  silent ;  but  so  is  a  rose,  so,  for  that  matter,  is  a 
cabbage  —  vegetables  generally  are.  But  that  epi- 
thet applied  to  the  rose  would  be  manifestly  inapt. 
It  is  appropriate  here  because  it  is  subtly  expres- 
sive of  that  demure  modesty  which  the  imagina- 
tion at  once  fixes  upon  as  the  spiritual  essence  of 
the  flower.  This  form  of  imagination,  then,  we 
may  call  Interpretative.  It  differs  from  the  pre- 
vious form  that  we  have  called  associative,  simply 
in  that  instead  of  rendering  the  emotional  effect  of 
an  object  by  images  of  other  things  emotionally 
akin,  it  renders  the  object  by  qualities  or  parts 
of  it  that  suggest  the  whole  in  its  spiritual  rela- 
tions. To  use  Wordsworth's  phrase,  it  "  sees  into 
the  life  of  things " ;  it  reveals  their  real  nature, 
their  deepest  value.  It  may  be  formally  described 
thus :  The  Interpretative  imagination  perceives  spirit- 
ual value  or  significance,  and  renders  objects  by  pre- 
senting those  parts  or  qualities  in  which  this  spiritual 
value  resides. 


THE    IMAGINATION  131 

It  is  this  third  form  of  imagination  that  is  of 
special  service  in  any  attempt  to  express  the  charm 
of  external  nature.  Detailed  description  is  always 
a  weariness  in  poetry  —  or  anywhere  else;  prin- 
cipally because  it  does  not  make  us  see  anything. 
We  are  given  a  great  number  of  details  one  after 
another,  but  we  cannot  put  them  together  and 
make  the  picture.  It  is  hopeless  to  try  to  do  that. 
Not  even  painting  can  give  us  any  exact  transcript 
of  what  we  see  when  we  look  upon  a  landscape,  and 
it  is  idle  for  literature  to  attempt  it.  In  fact,  we 
do  not  ourselves  remember  all  the  details  of  a  land- 
scape often  before  our  eyes,  in  the  same  full,  syn- 
chronous way  that  we  see  them.  Different  persons 
doubtless  differ  very  much  in  the  fulness  as  well 
as  the  vividness  of  their  visual  memory.  Kecent 
psychological  study  shows  curious  results  of  that 
kind;  but  any  one  who  will  form  in  memory  a 
picture  of  any  scene,  however  familiar,  will  hud 
that  his  picture  consists  of  a  few  vivid  features  and 
of  a  background  dim  and  hazy,  refusing  to  take 
definite  form.  But  if  it  be  thus  impossible  men- 
tally to  reproduce  in  much  detail  a  landscape  that 
we  know  very  well,  obviously  it  is  quite  impossible 
to  frame  one  we  have  never  seen,  simply  by  put- 
ting together  detailed  items  of  description.  And 
even  if  it  were  possible,  the  poet  would  not  care  to 
have  us  do  it;  because,  as  has  been  said,  the  emo- 
tional effect  of  the  landscape  docs  not.  in  strictness. 
proceed  from  the  details  we  see,  but  from  the  spir- 


132    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

itual  or  imaginative  influence  of  the  whole.  The 
poet,  therefore,  will  seek  to  interpret  rather  than 
to  describe.  Perceiving  in  what  particulars  the 
spiritual  power  of  the  scene  resides,  he  will  care 
only  for  these.  He  knows  that  the  part  is  better 
than  the  whole.  The  difference  between  an  unim- 
aginative treatment  of  nature  and  an  imaginative 
treatment  often  seems  to  lie  principally  in  the  fact 
that  the  one  writer  tries  to  describe  all  he  sees, 
while  the  other  renders  in  a  few  epithets  or  images 
what  he  feels.  Wordsworth  —  who,  though  rather 
given  to  writing  philosophy  when  he  should  have 
been  writing  poetry,  has  said  some  things  in  which 
philosophy  and  poetry  are  beautifully  wedded  — 
used  to  affirm  that  the  mere  seeing,  the  acute, 
eager  vision,  was  sometimes  a  hindrance  to  the 
imagination. 

"  I  speak  in  recollection  of  a  time 
When  the  bodily  eye,  in  every  stage  of  life 
The  most  despotic  of  our  se7ises,  gained 
Such  strength  in  me  as  often  held  my  mind 
In  absolute  dominion." 
****** 

"  I  roamed  from  hill  to  hill,  from  rock  to  rock, 
Still  craving  combinations  of  new  forms, 
New  pleasures,  wider  empire  for  the  sight, 
Proud  of  her  own  enjoyments,  and  rejoiced 
To  lay  the  inner  faculties  asleep.'''' 

Such  a  verdict  is  doubtless  specially  characteristic 
of  a  brooding  poet,  like  Wordsworth,  interested  in 
anything  which  could  start  a  train  of  reflection  in 


TIIK   IMAGINATION  133 

his  mind;  but  most  men  have  realized  what  he 
means  by  the  tyranny  of  the  eye.  It  is  matter 
of  familiar  experience  that  beautiful  things  often 
seem  even  more  beautiful  in  memory  than  they  did 
in  vision,  and  seem  at  least  to  derive  a  certain 
added  charm  from  the  very  fact  that  we  do  not 
see  them  before  the  mind's  eye  as  we  did  with  the 
bodily  eye.  It  is  not  that  we  see  them  less  viv- 
idly, for  the  greater  the  vividness  of  imagination  or 
memory  the  greater  our  pleasure ;  but  what  may 
be  called  the  incompleteness  of  imaginative  vision 
does  unquestionably  add  to  its  charm.  We  have 
dropped  out  of  our  picture  all  irrelevant  or  un- 
pleasing  details ;  our  attention  is  concentrated 
upon  those  few  features  that  gave  us  the  power- 
ful and  characteristic  impression,  and  all  the  rest 
are  lost  in  a  dim  and  hazy  background.  The  whole 
picture  is  thus  toned  into  harmony  with  its  pre- 
vailing sentiment.  It  is  idealized.  That  is  what 
imagination  does  for  us  all  in  our  memory  of  what 
we  have  seen.  We  can  see  the  process  beginning 
even  during  the  act  of  vision.  We  know  that 
while  we  are  Looking  at  anything  that  charms  us, 
the  imagination  is  idealizing  it,  vaguely  feeling  its 
meanings,  suggesting  analogies,  calling  up  other 
images  akin.  And  we  do  not  see  the  object  in 
all  its  details  the  more  clearly  the  longer  we  look  at 
it;  indeed,  we  probably  see  it  less  fully  while  the 

vision  is  thus  passing  into  feeling.  The  imagination 
la  selecting  those  details  in   which  the  emotional 


134    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

value  of  the  picture  resides,  and  which  are  to  be  the 
permanent  possession  of  our  memory. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  to  idealize  a  thing  is  not 
to  falsify  it ;  it  is  rather  to  give  a  vivid  impression 
of  what  is  most  true  and  essential  in  the  thing. 
We  are  to  remember  that  the  ideal  is  never  properly 
contrasted  with  the  true,  or  even  with  the  real,  but 
with  the  actual. 

Abundant  examples  of  this  mode  of  treating 
nature  may  be  found  in  the  work  of  any  genuine 
poet ;  yet  it  may  be  worth  while  to  cite  several 
here.  The  first  is  from  Matthew  Arnold's  poem, 
Dover  Beach. 

"  The  sea  is  calm  to-night, 
The  tide  is  full,  the  moon  lies  fair 
Upon  the  straits  ;  —  on  the  French  coast  the  light 
Gleams  and  is  gone  :  the  cliffs  of  England  stand, 
Glimmering  and  vast,  out  in  the  tranquil  bay. 
Come  to  the  window,  sweet  is  the  night-air  ! 
Only,  from  the  long  line  of  spray 
When  the  sea  meets  the  moon-blanch'd  land, 
Listen  !  you  hear  the  grating  roar 
Of  pebbles  which  the  waves  draw  back,  and  fling, 
At  their  return,  up  the  high  strand, 
Begin,  and  cease,  and  then  again  begin, 
With  tremulous  cadence  slow,  and  bring 
The  eternal  note  of  sadness  in." 

This,  we  say,  is  vivid  description ;  yet  no  two  of 
us,  should  we  try  to  reproduce  the  picture  the 
poet  has  made  in  our  mind,  would  paint  it  alike. 
His  lines  bring  to  our  imagination  with  thrilling 
reality  only  those  details  in  which  the  emotional 


THE    IMAGINATION  135 

power  of  the  scene  resides  —  the  hush  of  the  moon- 
light, and  the  long,  dreary  throb  of  the  sea.  Usu- 
ally the  more  intense  the  emotional  impression  of 
a  scene,  the  more  sure  it  is  to  be  concentrated  in 
very  few  images  and  not  dissipated  in  a  multitude 
of  descriptive  details.  Notice  the  startling  effect  of 
the  image  in  this  familiar  passage  from  Coleridge's 
Ckriatdbel:  — 

"  They  passed  the  hall,  that  echoes  still, 
Pass  as  lightly  as  you  will ! 
The  brands  were  flat,  the  brands  were  dying, 
In  their  own  white  ashes  lying  ; 
But  when  the  lady  passed  there  came 
A  tongue  of  light,  a  fit  of  flame; 
And  Christabel  saw  the  lady's  eye, 
And  nothing  else  sum  she  thereby 
Save  the  b08S  of  tin'  shield  of  Sir  Li  ulinc  tall, 
Which  hung  in  a  murky  old  niche  in  the  icall. 
'  O  softly  tread,'  said  Christabel, 
•  My  father  seldom  sleepeth  well.'  '' 

But  it  is  not  merely,  perhaps  it  is  not  most  strik- 
ingly, in  extended  passages  like  these  that  this 
imaginative  treatment  of  nature  is  illustrated.  In 
a  single  lint'.  BOmetimes  in  a  single  epithet,  the 
poet  can  Hash  upon  OUT  imagination  a  picture  that 
shall  seem  filled  with  passionate  emotion.  Com- 
pare with  the  picture  of   the  melancholy  sea  in   the 

passage  Erom   Arnold  quoted  above,  a  still  more 

Wonderful  line  Erom  another  of  his  poems:  — 
44  The  unplumbed,  salt,  estranging  sea  I  " 


136     PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

One  of  Burns's  songs  ends  with  this  image  of  al- 
most painful  beauty,  — 

"  The  wan  moon  is  setting  behind  the  white  wave, 
And  time  is  setting  with  rne,  oh  !  " 

In  Browning's  Ring  and  the  Book,  Pompilia,  tell- 
ing of  one  of  the  momentary  pauses  of  safety  in 
her  terrified  flight  with  Caponsacchi,  says,  — 

"  We  stepped  into  a  hovel  to  get  food  — 
All  outside  was  lone  field,  moon,  and  such  peace  I " 

Such  instances  may  show  how  the  poet  rather  in- 
terprets nature  than  describes  it.  It  is  not  what 
he  sees,  but  what  he  feels,  that  he  wishes  to 
render;  but  he  must  render  that  by  showing  us 
some  part  or  aspect  of  what  he  sees. 

These  considerations,  by  the  way,  may  indicate 
why  no  great  imaginative  writer's  works  ever  can 
be  illustrated.  To  attempt  to  illustrate  them  is  an 
offence;  to  buy  illustrated  editions  of  poetry  is  a 
stupidity.  For  the  pictures  inevitably  force  into 
prominence  irrelevant  details  that  dim  or  put  out 
the  poet's  conception. 

What  the  poet  feels  in  the  presence  of  nature 
will  depend,  of  course,  in  great  part  upon  his  own 
temperament  and  mood.  It  is,  indeed,  true  that 
most  objects  have  what  may  be  called  a  natural  ex- 
pression, a  certain  impression  that  they  are  intrin- 
sically fitted  to  leave  on  all  healthy  minds.  And 
perhaps  that  is  the  most  satisfactory  poetry  of  na- 
ture which  seems  to  render  this  impression  faith- 


THE    IMAGINATION  137 

fully,  to  show  us  things  just  as  they  are  without 
any  coloring  from  the  poet's  mind.  It  is  the  high 
praise  of  Wordsworth  that  he  almost  always  does 
this.  Yet  it  is  undeniable  that  the  world  is  col- 
ored by  our  moods.  The  same  thing  has  one  mean- 
ing for  me  to-day  and  quite  another  when  my 
temper  shall  have  changed  to-morrow.  Romeo 
finds  balm  and  beauty  in  the  air  of  Juliet's  garden 
under  the  blessed  moon  that  silvers  all  the  fruit- 
tree  tops;  but  Mercutio  only  fears  that  he  may 
take  cold.  A  high  reach  of  imagination  often  ap- 
pears in  the  expression  of  this  "  pathetic  fallacy," 
as  Ruskin  terms  it — in  letting  us  see  nature 
through  the  eyes  of  the  poet,  or  through  the  eyes 
of  the  men  and  women  he  has  created.  Take  an 
example  from  the  most  dramatic  of  modern  poets, 
Browning.  The  Arab  physician,  Karshish,  has 
met  the  risen  Lazarus,  and  the  meeting  has  rilled 
him  with  vagne,  undefined  wonder,  which  he 
vainly  tries  to  explain  away;  and  everything  he 
says  while  under  this  spell  is  colored  by  this  sense 
of  mystery. 

"  I  met  him  thus  — 
I  crossed  a  ridge  of  short,  sharp,  broken  hills 
Like  an  old  lion's  cluck  teeth.     <>ut  there  came 
A  moon  made  like  B  face,  with  certain  spots 
Multiform,  manifold,  and  menacing: 
Then  a  wind  rose  behind  me.    So  we  met 

In  this  old,  sleepy  town  at  unaware, 
This  man  and  I." 

Hon-  is  another  picture,  beautiful  in  itself,  but 


138    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

many  times  more  beautiful  because  it  subtly  ex- 
presses the  fading  hope,  the  nerveless  dejection  of 
the  speaker.  It  is  from  that  most  pathetic  of 
poems,  Browning's  Andrea  del  Sarto. 

"  I  often  am  much  wearier  than  you  think, 
This  evening  more  than  usual,  and  it  seems 
As  if  —  forgive  now  —  should  you  let  me  sit 
Here  by  the  window  with  your  hand  in  mine 
And  look  a  half-hour  forth  on  Fiesole, 
Both  of  one  mind,  as  married  people  use, 
Quietly,  quietly,  the  evening  through, 
I  might  get  up  to-morrow  to  my  work 
Cheerful  and  fresh  as  ever.     Let  us  try. 
******* 
A  common  greyness  silvers  everything,  — 
All  in  a  twilight,  you  and  I  alike 
—  You,  at  the  point  of  your  first  pride  in  me 
(That's  gone,  you  know),  —  but  I,  at  every  point ; 
My  youth,  my  hope,  my  art,  being  all  toned  down 
To  yonder  sober,  pleasant  Fiesole. 
There's  the  bell  clinking  from  the  chapel-top  ; 
That  length  of  convent- wall  across  the  way 
Holds  the  trees  safer,  huddled  more  inside  ; 
The  last  monk  leaves  the  garden  ;  days  decrease, 
And  autumn  grows,  autumn  in  everything. 
Eh  ?  the  whole  seems  to  fall  into  a  shape 
As  if  I  saw  alike  my  work  and  self 
And  all  that  I  was  born  to  be  and  do, 
A  twilight  piece." 

Of  course  the  great  master  of  this  effect,  as  of 
all  others  that  belong  especially  to  the  dramatic 
art,  is  Shakspere.  All  his  references  to  nature 
are  of  this  sort.  Examples  are  too  numerous  for 
specification,   but   for   two   we   may   mention   the 


THE   IMAGINATION  139 

last  words  of  Antony  to  Eros,1  which  we  can  hardly 
read  without  a  choking  sense  of  sorrowful  doom, 
and,  as  a  contrasted  picture,  sweet  Perdita's 
flower  garden2  as  she  and  Florizel  see  it,  youth 
and  love  and  archness  blooming  in  every  flower. 

It  is  thus  that  imagination  interprets  the  little 
that  we  may  see  into  the  vast  infinite  we  may  feel, 
and  so  transfigures  the  world.  Our  examples 
have  been  of  the  imaginative  treatment  of  external 
nature,  because  it  is  easy  to  find  such  examples 
within  brief  compass.  But  human  character,  real 
or  imagined,  is  interpreted  in  the  same  way. 
When  the  novelist  forgets  that,  and  begins  to 
analyze  laboriously  his  characters  instead  of  show- 
ing them  to  us  in  their  essential  words  and  deeds, 
then  he  forgets  his  art,  and  we  forget  to  read  him. 

Although  for  the  sake  of  clearness  it  is  well  to 
distinguish  these  three  forms  of  imagination,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  in  the  actual  exercise 
of  the  faculty  the  three  forms  can  always  be 
clearly  discriminated.  On  the  contrary,  they  shade 
into  one  another  insensibly,  and  any  extended  or 
impressive  exercise  of  imagination  is  likely  to 
show  all  three. 

Of  all  our  faculties*  the  imagination  is  perhaps 
the  most  universally  useful  in  literature.  All 
writing  that  is  properly  to  be  called  literature 
needs  it,  and   the   higher  the  order  of  literature 

1  "Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  Act  IV.,  Sc.  14. 
3  "  Winter's  Tale,''  Act  IV.,  Sc.  4. 


140    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

the  greater  the  demand  upon  the  imagination. 
In  the  case  of  the  more  typical  and  aesthetic 
forms,  poetry  and  fiction,  this  is  so  obvious  as  to 
need  no  discussion.  But  a  moment's  reflection 
will  show  us  that  the  imagination  is  no  less  neces- 
sary in  the  more  sober  and  pedestrian  varieties  of 
literature.  In  history,  for  example.  The  histo- 
rian needs  imagination,  first,  to  secure  the  truth 
of  his  work.  He  must  see  his  men  and  women 
if  he  would  judge  them  rightly.  It  is  his  task 
not  merely  to  arrange  and  chronicle  facts,  but 
rather,  from  scattered  memoranda,  from  fragmen- 
tary and  often  conflicting  records,  to  recreate  the 
men  and  women  of  the  past  as  they  were,  real, 
living  persons  whose  motives  shall  be  clear  to 
us.  He  must  do  more  than  that.  He  must  set 
these  persons  in  their  proper  environment  of 
circumstance,  and  he  must,  further,  recreate  for 
us  that  complex,  indefinable  something  we  call 
the  spirit  of  an  age  —  its  characteristic  feelings, 
preferences,  modes  of  judgment.  A  man  unable 
to  realize  himself  or  convey  to  others  the  vast 
difference  in  temper  between  the  Elizabethan  age 
and  the  age  of  Anne  would  be  manifestly  incapa- 
ble of  writing  a  history  of  either,  or  a  life  of 
any  representative  man  in  either.  It  is  only  the 
imagination  that  can  thus  recreate  the  persons  or 
the  spirit  of  the  past,  and  so  put  us  in  their  pres- 
ence that  we  may  judge  them  fairly.  To  garner 
and  arrange   facts,  to  take  voluminous  testimony 


THE   IMAGINATION  141 

and  draw  careful  inferences  from  it,  this  is  not  to 
write  history.  It  is  only  when  Ave  are  made  to  see 
the  past  as  if  it  were  the  present  that  we  can  under- 
stand it.  Doubtless  the  imagination  may  mislead 
the  historian.  If  he  has  a  preconceived  ideal  of  his 
subject,  the  imagination  may  subtly  warp  or  color 
his  facts  to  fit  that  ideal.  Some  brilliant  histo- 
rians, the  late  Mr.  Froude,  for  example,  have  been 
chargeable  with  this  fault.  Or,  a  vivid  imagina- 
tion may  exaggerate  the  picturesque  phases  of 
history,  its  striking  or  dramatic  moments,  to  the 
neglect  of  its  more  dull-colored  but  more  impor- 
tant social  and  political  truths ;  so  that  what 
should  be  a  history  turns  out  something  more  like 
an  epic.  That  is  unquestionably  a  just  criticism 
upon  Carlyle's  French  Revolution.  The  true  his- 
torian needs  to  combine  with  imagination  industry 
to  gather  his  facts,  and  trained  practical  judg- 
ment to  check  his  imagination,  correct  his  pre- 
possessions, and  bring  his  facts  to  the  test  of  a 
strictly  scientific  method.  lint  the  facts  with 
which  the  historian  has  to  deal  are  mostly  moral 
facts,  facts  of  life  and  character ;  it  is,  therefore, 
only  when  they  are  verified  and  realized  by  the 
imagination  that  they  can  be  truly  estimated. 

Ami  if  the  historian  needs  imagination  to  in- 
sure the  truth  of  his  work,  he  needs  it  still  more  to 
give  thai  work  interest  and  lasting  literary  value. 
Much  historical  writing  is  removed  only  a  little 
way    from    chronicle,   records,    or   other   raw   mate- 


142     PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

rial  of  history.  It  is  this  raw  material  only  half 
worked  up.  As  such,  it  undoubtedly  has  great 
value  for  the  historical  student ;  but  it  has  slight 
claim  to  be  called  literature.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  great  historians  whose  work  has  recognized 
and  permanent  literary  value  have  always  known 
how  to  present  their  story  vividly  before  our  imagi- 
nation and  thus  give  to  it  the  movement  and  charm 
of  real  life. 

This  need  of  the  imagination  may  be  easily  seen 
in  all  other  forms  of  prose  composition  not  strictly 
scientific  in  character.  The  critic,  for  example, 
if  he  aspire  to  be  a  man  of  letters,  must  have 
something  more  than  a  body  of  sound  critical  prin- 
ciples and  good  judgment  in  their  application. 
His  work,  too,  must  meet  the  ever  present  require- 
ment of  literature  —  it  must  touch  the  emotions ; 
and  to  do  this,  the  writer  must  have  imagination. 
His  imagination  will  usually  show  itself,  first,  by 
realizing  the  personality  and  surroundings  of  the 
author  criticised,  and,  secondly,  by  a  constant  play 
of  illustration,  analogy,  example.  The  first  use  of 
his  imagination  will  insure  that  his  criticism  be 
sympathetic;  the  second,  that  it  be  illuminating. 
In  general,  on  any  and  all  subjects,  what  is  called 
in  this  chapter  the  Associative  Imagination  is  the 
surest  guarantee  of  a  brilliant  and  suggestive  style. 
The  man  who  always  sees  his  principles  incor- 
porate themselves  instantly  in  concrete  facts  can 
hardly  be  a  dull  writer.     It  is  true,  indeed,  that 


THE    IMAGINATION  143 

imagination  does  not  always  imply  a  correspond- 
ing power  of  expression:  I  may  have  an  object 
vividly  present  to  my  own  imagination  without 
being  able  to  show  it  to  my  neighbor.  Yet  it  is 
always  easier  to  convey  a  concrete  image  than  an 
abstract  or  general  conception ;  and  the  probability 
of  effective  speech  is  therefore  increased  when  the 
mind  naturally  embodies  its  thought  in  imagina- 
tive forms  and  clothes  truth  in  circumstance. 

In  this  discussion  we  are  concerned  principally 
with  the  imagination  as  it  is  used  in  literature  to 
excite  emotion ;  but  we  may  notice,  in  closing 
this  chapter,  that  the  imagination  is  a  neces- 
sary faculty  in  the  acquisition  of  all  our  knowl- 
edge. Our  earliest  knowledge,  of  course,  is  of 
concrete  objects  of  sense ;  when  we  learn  later, 
by  reading  or  any  other  means,  of  similar  objects 
that  we  have  not  seen,  Ave  at  once  frame  images 
more  or  less  distinct  of  these  objects.  To  under- 
stand the  words  composing  the  greater  part  of  our 
substantive  vocabulary  is  to  form  images  of  the 
things  they  name,  images  which,  though  often 
vague  01  incomplete,  are  not  incorrect.  Learning 
thus  becomes,  to  a  considerable  degree,  an  exercise 
of  the  imagination.  The  mental  growth  of  children 
depends  tar  more  than  is  often  supposed  upon  their 

power  and  habit  of  imaging  words  and  BO  realiz- 
ing their  knowledge  as  they  gel  it;   and  in  later 

years  most  of  our  reading  is  of  little  value  unless 
it     is    interpreted     by    a    constant    exercise    of    tho 


144    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

imagination.  What  is  called  the  scientific  im- 
agination is  a  similar  exercise  of  the  faculty.  To 
a  mind  habitually  intent  upon  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect,  any  given  thing  or  state  of  things  natu- 
rally suggests  some  second  thing  or  state  of  things 
of  which  the  first  is  cause  or  effect.  This  is  not 
reasoning ;  the  reasoning  comes  afterward,  to  prove 
the  validity  of  the  suggestion.  The  suggestion  is 
usually  an  act  of  spontaneous  imagination,  a  rapid 
vision  of  possibilities.  The  essential  difference 
between  this  scientific  or  practical  imagination  and 
the  literary  imagination  is  that  in  the  case  of  the 
former,  the  act  of  imagination  is  the  result  of  an 
intellectual  impulse ;  in  the  latter,  it  is  the  result 
of  emotion.  In  both  cases,  if  the  faculty  exercised 
be  imagination  rather  than  fancy,  the  mind  is  striv- 
ing to  get  clearer  vision  of  the  thing  as  it  is,  of  the 
truth  of  it;  but  in  the  one  case  the  property  or 
phase  of  the  thing  sought  is  that  which  is  of  inter- 
est to  the  intellect,  and  the  other  that  which  is  of 
interest  to  the  emotions.  For  let  it  always  be 
remembered  that  one  of  these  phases  is  as  much 
true  and  real  as  the  other;  the  beauty  and  the 
modesty  of  the  daisy  are  as  certainly  the  truth  as 
its  botanical  structure  or  the  way  in  which  it  feeds 
on  nitrogen. 

Since  the  imagination  when  used  in  literature  is 
always  associated  with  emotions,  it  follows  that 
any  high  degree  of  imagination  generally  implies 
a    corresponding    development    of    the    emotional 


THE   IMAGINATION  145 

nature.  Powerful  or  wide-reaching  imagination  is 
never  found  in  connection  with  a  cold,  thin,  acrid, 
emotional  temperament.  Indeed,  the  imagination 
and  the  emotions  seem  usually  to  be  developed  in 
closest  correspondence,  any  weakness  or  irregu- 
larity in  the  one  finding  its  parallel  in  the  other. 
Thus,  if  the  emotional  nature  be  somehow  flawed, 
tending  to  extravagance  and  sentimentality,  the 
imagination  tends  to  run  into  fancy  and  to  lose  its 
basis  in  truth.  The  work  of  Shelley  and  of  Keats 
would  illustrate  this  in  various  ways.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  men  of  supreme  imaginative 
power,  a  Shakspere  or  a  Dante,  are  always  men 
whose  emotions  are  deep  and  strong,  but  sane  and 
well  controlled. 


CHAPTER  EIETH 
The  Intellectual  Element  in  Literature 

In  this  chapter  we  have  to  consider  the  intel- 
lectual element  in  literature ;  that  is,  the  fact, 
thought,  or  truth  which  must  serve  as  the  basis  of 
all  intelligent  writing.  In  some  forms  of  writing, 
which  yet  are  to  be  called  literature,  this  element, 
as  we  have  seen,  forms  the  purpose  of  the  book, 
the  end  for  which  it  is  written.  This  is  the  case, 
for  example,  with  books  of  history  and  criticism, 
which  aim  primarily  at  giving,  not  pleasure,  but 
fact  and  truth.  And  although  even  here,  as  has 
been  shown  in  a  previous  chapter,  it  is  still  the 
power  to  stir  the  emotions  which  gives  to  the  book 
literary  quality,  yet  we  should  not  estimate  the 
book  primarily  by  that  power.  We  measure  the 
worth  of  such  a  book  —  at  all  events  if  we  are  not 
narrowly  aesthetic  in  our  judgment  —  primarily  by 
the  information  it  gives  us.  But  just  on  this 
account,  literary  criticism  has  less  to  say  with 
reference  to  the  intellectual  element  in  this  class 
of  books  than  in  any  other ;  and  what  it  has  to  say 
is  largely  so  obvious  as  hardly  to  need  statement. 
The  requirement  upon  the  intellectual  element  in 
such  a  book  is  simple,  —  it  must  be  copious,  accu- 
146 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     147 

rate,  clear.  We  wish  that  the  book  should  tell  us 
as  much  fact  or  truth  as  possible;  that  it  should 
tell  it  correctly  ;  and  that  it  should  tell  it  with  such 
•perspicuity  and  method  as  to  be  easily  understood. 
But  it  is  evident  that  as  to  the  first  two  of  these 
requisites,  amount  and  accuracy,  there  is  little 
room  for  critical  discussion.  Other  related  sub- 
sidiary sciences  may  indeed  be  helpful  here  both 
to  the  author  and  the  critic.  Thus,  for  example,  it 
may  be  quite  possible  to  lay  down  some  laws  of 
historical  evidence,  some  rules  for  the  gathering 
and  sifting  of  testimony  which  shall  be  of  great 
value  to  the  historian  in  securing  the  accuracy  of 
his  work,  and  to  the  critic  in  estimating  that  ac- 
curacy. But  though  such  special  rides  might  be 
of  service  to  the  literary  critic,  as  any  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  field  covered  by  the  book  he 
criticises  would  certainly  be,  yet  it  can  hardly  be 
the  duty  of  literary  criticism  to  formulate  them. 
And  the  discussion  of  ways  and  means  by  winch 
the  third  requisite,  clearness,  may  be  secured  be- 
longs in  the  field  of  Rhetoric  To  lay  down  laws 
of  narration  and  exposition,  rules  for  the  effective 
disposition  of  arguments,  to  suggest  ways  by  which 
a  complicated  mass  of  facts   may  be  marshalled  in 

orderly  manner,  or  various  streams  of  events  com- 
bined in  a  methodical  yet  flowing  story  —  in  a 
word,  all   detailed  discussion  (d'  the   mechanics  of 

Btyle  Beema  rather  the  task  of  the  rhetorioian  than 

of   the   literary  critic  who   estimates   the   completed 


148    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

product  by  its  effects;  and  in  so  far  as  it  belongs 
to  Literary  Criticism  at  all,  it  may  more  properly 
be  considered  under  the  head  of  Form,  in  the  next 
chapter. 

In  general,  we  may  say  of  books  of  this  kind,  in 
which  the  intellectual  element  is  of  first  impor- 
tance, that  their  literary  rank  will  depend  upon  the 
ability  of  the  writer  to  combine  amount,  accuracy, 
and  clearness  of  information  with  emotional  inter- 
est. Men  vary  greatly,  of  course,  in  this  ability. 
Yet  the  very  impulse  to  utter  a  truth  implies  some 
feeling  about  it;  the  effort  to  give  it  adequate  ex- 
pression may  evoke  at  every  step  associated  images 
and  emotions.  When  a  writer's  truths  and  facts 
are  thus  warmed  by  his  sympathies,  brightened 
and  vivified  by  his  imagination,  we  call  his  writing 
brilliant,  or  animated,  or  forcible,  or  picturesque  — 
all  of  which  terms  are  only  names  for  various  forms 
of  incidental  power  over  the  emotions.  The  writer 
deficient  in  this  power  to  set  his  subject  in  emo- 
tional relations  must  inevitably  forgo  most  of  the 
rhetorical  virtues ;  if  he  be  altogether  destitute  of 
it,  his  work  must  take  rank  with  records,  chroni- 
cles, or  other  raw  material  of  literature,  or  at  best 
with  purely  scientific  writing,  extremely  valuable 
perhaps  as  stored  and  methodized  knowledge,  but 
hardly  literature. 

When,  however,  we  turn  to  pure  literature,  as 
poetry  and  fiction,  the  first  purpose  of  which  is  to 
stir  emotion,  the  consideration  of  the  intellectual 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     149 

element  in  the  work  criticised  suggests  some  inter- 
esting topics  of  discussion.  We  are  not  to  think 
that  this  intellectual  element  is  of  little  value  in 
these  more  emotional  forms  of  literature.  Their 
rank  must  always  depend,  in  great  part,  upon  the 
truth  they  contain.  We  have  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter  that  the  first  requisite  of  the  emotion 
awakened  by  literature  is  that  it  should  be  based 
on  adequate  grounds.  All  deep  and  sane  emotional 
effects  arise  from  some  profound  truth.  It  follows 
that  all  really  great  books  are  wise.  Poetry,  the 
most  purely  emotional  form  of  literature,  is  to  be 
measured  always  very  largely  by  the  amount  and 
quality  of  the  thought  which  underlies  its  emotion. 
The  greatest  poets  are  always  men  of  sound  judg- 
ment, wide  experience  of  life,  profound  knowledge  of 
the  most  important  things.  As  Carlyle  says,  "A 
poet  who  could  only  sit  on  a  chaii  and  write  verses 
would  never  write  any  verses  worth  the  reading." 
Indeed,  the  deepest  truths  of  individual  human  life, 
and  the  ruling  thought  and  belief  of  any  age,  are 
to  be  read  more  truly  in  poetry  than  anywhere 
else.  No  philosopher  has  told  us  so  much  of 
human  life  as  Shakspere  lias;  no  historian  has 
recorded  so  well  the  dominant  temper  of  the 
Victorian  age  as  Tennyson  and  Browning  and 
Matthew  Arnold  have  done.  We  have  ;i  right  to 
ask,  then,   of   any    work    of   literary    art,   however 

emotional  in  purpose,  What  does  it  mean?    What 

truths  does  it  embodj  and  enforce?     We  shall  find 


150    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

there  is  no  eminence  in  literature  without  some- 
thing high  or  serious  in  its  thought;  and  that, 
other  things  being  equal,  the  value  of  all  literature 
increases  with  the  breadth  and  depth  of  the  truth 
it  contains. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  in  literature  of  this 
kind  it  is  not  necessary  for  the  underlying  truth 
to  be  new.  In  books  whose  primary  purpose  is 
to  inform,  as  history  or  science,  that  of  course  is 
necessary.  We  shall  not  read  a  book  that  aims  to 
tell  us  something  we  knew  very  well  before.  But 
in  books  of  the  other  class  we  do  not  demand  nov- 
elty of  thought.  We  must  make  a  distinction  here, 
however,  which  is  constantly  necessary  in  discuss- 
ing the  intellectual  basis  of  literature  —  the  dis- 
tinction between  truth  and  fact.  In  works  designed 
to  stir  the  emotions,  the  facts  are  usually  furnished 
by  the  imagination,  but  the  truths  are  those  laws 
of  human  nature  that  govern  our  affections,  pas- 
sions, conduct,  and  determine  our  relations  to  each 
other.  Now  the  facts  in  a  work  of  this  kind,  being 
fictitious,  must  be  new ;  but  the  truths  are  old  and 
usually  familiar.  Take,  for  example,  any  play  of 
Shakspere,  any  great  novel,  any  epic  or  narrative 
poem ;  the  story  that  it  tells  must  have  the  charm 
of  novelty.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  if  the  drama  or 
novel  be  historical  in  subject,  the  main  outlines  of 
the  narrative  may  be  familiar,  but  the  details  at 
least  must  be  new.  Yet  the  value  of  the  work  will 
depend  not  chiefly  upon  the  novelty  of  its  facts, 


INTELLECTUAL    ELEMENT    IN    LITERATURE      151 

but  upon  the  vividness  and  power  with  which  it 
enforces  some  essential  truths  of  human  life.  And 
these  truths  are  sure  to  be  familiar.  It  is  not  the 
object  of  the  writer  to  teach  them ;  he  takes  them 
for  granted,  and  avails  himself  of  their  universal 
power  over  human  emotion.  So  true  is  this,  that 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  very  great  work  of  litera- 
ture ever  can  be  based  on  truths  that  are  novel, 
recondite,  or  known  only  to  a  limited  class.  If  the 
dramatist,  or  novelist,  or  poet  attempts  to  do  this, 
he  restricts  at  once  the  interest  of  his  work,  and 
gives  up  hope  of  a  place  among  the  men  of  univer- 
sal fame.  It  is  quite  possible  for  a  poet  to  be  too 
abstruse  or  subtle.  Some  of  Browning's  work,  for 
example,  finds  its  motive  in  truths  of  human  con- 
duct that  are  exceptional  or  obscure,  and  the  poems 
of  which  this  is  true  can  evidently  never  be  among 
the  world's  greatest  works.  A  novelist,  the  other 
day,  wrote  a  novel  in  which  the  action  turned  upon 
the  alleged  truths  of  hypnotism  ;  but  it  will  hardly 
prove  as  lasting  as  some  of  Miss  Austen's  stories, 
which  contain  no  truths  of  human  nature  more  rec- 
ondite than  are  to  be  observed  at  five  o'clock  tea. 
For,  as  Burke  said,  there  are  not  many  discov- 
eries to  be  made  in  human  nature.  The  broad 
truths  which  underlie  our  life  are  familiar  enough 
to  us  all.  Wo  do  not  need  to  be  taught  them; 
we  Lean)  them  rery  early,  Bince  they  are  only  the 
application  of  our  intuitive  moral  perceptions  to 
the  facts  of  common  experience.     We  ask  of  Litera- 


152    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

ture,  rather,  that  it  make  us  feel  these  truths  — 
realize  them  in  imagination  and  so  have  the  emo- 
tions they  are  fitted  to  produce.  The  universal 
and  undeniable  truths  of  human  nature  thus  form 
the  stuff  of  the  greatest  literature.  And  he  is  likely 
to  be  the  greatest  writer  who  can  make  us  realize 
the  greatest  number  of  these  truths,  who  can  give 
us  a  sympathetic  comprehension  of  the  widest 
section  of  human  life. 

These  statements  suggest  another  question. 
How  far  is  it  necessary  that  these  truths  which, 
as  we  have  said,  must  underlie  the  best  literature, 
should  be  correct?  We  have  seen  that  in  the 
kind  of  literature  now  under  consideration,  we 
do  not  demand  that  the  intellectual  basis  should 
be  new:  do  we  demand  that  it  should  be,  in  the 
strict  sense,  true  ?  May  we  not  have  very  noble 
poetry  or  fiction  based  on  false  or  mistaken  views 
of  life,  and  none  the  less  noble  on  that  account  ? 

From  what  has  been  said  of  the  value  of  truth 
in  all  literature,  it  should  seem  that  this  question 
must  be  answered  instantly  in  the  negative.  Yet 
there  are  some  critics  who  would  give  a  different 
answer,  and  there  is  some  literature  that  seems 
at  first  sight  to  support  their  position.  A  con- 
temporary writer,  Mr.  W.  J.  Courthope,  remarks 
in  one  of  his  essays,1  that  in  poetry  the  goodness 
or  badness  of  the  central  conception  depends  not 
on  its  philosophical  truth,  but  on   its  fitness   for 

1  "The  Liberal  Movement  in  English  Literature,"  p.  145. 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     153 

the  purposes  of  art.  Thus,  "though  the  theory 
of  life  maintained,  for  example,  in  Pope's  Essay 
on  Man  is  for  the  most  part  false,  it  forms  a 
convenient  backbone  for  the  poem  and  serves  as 
a  support  to  all  those  brilliant  aphorisms  and 
epigrams  in  which  Pope's  genius  shone  with 
unrivalled  lustre."  Wordsworth's  great  Ode  on  the 
Intimations  of  Immortal it >/  will  afford  us  another 
example.  Its  central  conception,  that  the  quicker 
feelings  of  youth  and  the  unlearned  intuitions  are 
reminiscences  of  a  former  state  of  existence,  that 

"  Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home  "  — 

this  conception,  beautiful  as  it  may  be,  is,  to  say 
the  best  of  it,  of  very  doubtful  truth.  But  is  the 
poem  for  that  reason  any  less  august  and  moving  ? 
Or,  again,  consider,  as  perhaps  the  most  crucial 
instance  that  could  be  found,  Shelley's  great 
poem  of  revolution,  the  Prometheus  Unbound.  The 
I'mme/heus  paints  in  most  glowing  colors,  with 
a  sweep  and  grace  of  imagination  unsurpassed  and 
with  a  most  genuine  rapture  of  feeling,  the  bright 
picture  of  a  Social  millennium  which  never  could 
l»o  realized.  It  is  the  glorious  imagined  realiza- 
tion of  an  utterly  false  ideal.  The  views  of 
human  nature  and  human  society  which  it  em- 
bodies  arc  radically  mistaken.  Is  it,  or  is  it  not, 
therefore,  of  anj  less  value  as  poetry?     Is  its  art 


154     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

impaired   because   of    this    detachment   from   the 
truths  of  life? 

But  such  instances  as  these  by  no  means  prove, 
or  even  indicate,  that  the  soundness  of  the  intel- 
lectual element  in  literature  is  a  matter  of  second- 
ary importance.  In  all  three  of  the  cases  cited  the 
poetry,  which  certainly  is  in  each  case  very  emi- 
nent poetry  of  its  kind,  is  eminent  in  spite  of  the 
element  of  untruth  in  its  central  conception.  More 
than  that,  this  element  of  untruth  is,  in  each  case, 
just  so  much  deduction  from  the  permanent  liter- 
ary value  of  the  poem.  The  excellence  of  the 
Essay  on  Man  depends,  as  Mr.  Courthope  sees, 
principally  upon  detached  epigrams  and  aphor- 
isms, which  taken  by  themselves  are  true,  and 
which  really  have  very  little  relation  to  the  cen- 
tral conception.  As  Pope  never  could  carry 
through  a  train  of  argument  clearly,  —  being  un- 
able, for  the  life  of  him,  to  put  two  premises 
together  and  draw  a  logical  conclusion  from  them, 
—  he  depended  for  his  effects  not  so  much  upon 
the  justice  and  force  of  the  general  teaching  of  his 
poem  as  upon  the  brilliancy  of  its  details.  It  made 
comparatively  little  difference,  therefore,  whether 
his  central  conception  was  true  or  false,  or 
whether  he  had  any  clearly  defined  central  truth 
at  all.  And  yet,  who  does  not  see  that  Pope's 
poetry  would  have  been  of  a  much  higher  order  if 
he  could  have  made  it  the  expression  of  some  con- 
sistent and  true  philosophy  of  life ;  if,  let  us  say, 


INTELLECTUAL    ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     155 

he  had  united  with  his  most  brilliant  mastery  of 
detail  Dryden's  power  of  sustained  thinking.  So 
Wordsworth's  Ode  is,  indeed,  a  glorious  poem,  be- 
cause, more  forcibly,  perhaps,  than  any  other  poem 
of  this  century,  it  gives  expression  to  those  deep- 
lying  powers  and  faculties  of  our  nature  which  hide 
themselves  far  within  the  recesses  of  personality 
and  will  not  come  out  to  sit  down  in  the  clear  light 
of  consciousness ;  which  baffle  our  analysis,  but  yet 
are,  we  know, 

"The  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
The  master  light  of  all  our  seeing." 

Wordsworth's  poem  is  entitled  to  its  preeminence, 
in  short,  because  it  expresses  so  much  truth  not 
easily  expressed  ;  but  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
the  thought  which  serves  as  its  starting-point,  the 
idea  of  reminiscence,  adds  anything  to  its  value. 
We  understand  what  Matthew  Arnold  meant  when 
he  confessed  to  finding  the  great  Ode  just  a 
little  declamatory.  It  Asa  little  declamatory;  and 
most  declamatory  just  when  its  central  truth  is 
most  weak.  As  to  Shelley's  poetry,  that  certainly 
lucks  the  sober  charm  of  truth.  We  follow  breath- 
less the  poet's  rapt  enthusiasm,  we  wonder  at  the 
beauty  and  daring  of  his  tenuous  imaginings;  but 

we  know  they  have  no  BOlidity  and  would   collapse 

ut  the  first  touch  of  fact. 

We  need  ool  hesitate  to  affirm,  then,  that   one 
requisite  of  the  greatest  literature  is  thai  the  intel 


156    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

lectual  conceptions  underlying  it  should  correspond 
with  the  truths  and  laws  of  human  life.  Litera- 
ture is  always,  in  the  last  analysis,  an  imaginative 
representation  of  life,  as  the  author  conceives  life ; 
it  is  obvious  that  the  value  of  the  representa- 
tion must  depend  on  the  truth  of  the  conception. 
Literature  is  not  bound  always  to  picture  life  as  it 
is  in  its  outward  circumstance  —  of  that  we  shall 
have  more  to  say  presently ;  but  it  is  bound  to  be 
faithful  to  its  inner  spirit  and  laws.  This  obliga- 
tion rests  even  upon  those  varieties  of  literature 
which  depart  most  widely  from  the  truth  of  out- 
ward fact.  Romantic  poetry,  for  example.  Ro- 
mance is  the  exhibition  of  familiar  motive  in 
unfamiliar  circumstance.  It  is  a  device  to  bring 
out  the  bolder  traits  of  character  by  the  test  of 
some  unexpected  incident.  We  all  often  wonder 
what  we  should  do  if  confronted  with  some  sudden 
appeal  to  our  love,  our  honor,  our  heroism.  Ro- 
mantic literature  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  picture  of 
characters  placed  in  such  emergency  and  then  act- 
ing and  suffering  as  we  feel  they  ought.  But  they 
must  be  genuine  human  characters  acting  in  accord- 
ance with  the  real  laws  of  human  nature.  Compare, 
with  reference  to  this  requirement,  Scott's  roman- 
tic poetry  with  Byron's  Oriental  poems,  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake  or  Marmion  with  Conrad  or  Lara. 
Doubtless  neither  poet  represents  the  manners  and 
customs,  the  outward  circumstances,  of  any  age 
with  exact  historic  fidelity.     There  probably  never 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     157 

were  any  such  conditions  as  those  described  in  the 
Lady  of  the  Lake,  ami  the  average  chieftain  of  the 
Scottish  Border  was  probably,  as  Macaulay  says, 
little  better  than  a  bare-legged  cattle-thief.  But 
there  are  such  men  as  Marmion  and  Douglas  and 
Roderick  Dim  and  the  rest  of  Scott's  heroes ; 
there  are  such  virtues,  and  they  find  healthy  exer- 
cise and  win  genuine  admiration,  through  all  ages, 
in  very  much  the  same  way.  "While,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  never  were  any  such  men  as  Byron's 
Conrads  and  Laras,  and  never  could  be.  These 
lofty,  self-communing  pirates  and  cut-throats  who 
"  combine  one  virtue  with  a  thousand  crimes  "  are 
only  the  morbid  imaginings  of  a  powerful  but  ill- 
balanced  nature  in  peevish  revolt  against  society. 
In  the  one  case,  the  poetry  is  based  on  wholesome, 
universal  truths  of  human  nature ;  in  the  other,  it 
has  really  no  basis  in  truth  at  all,  and  hence,  how- 
ever popular  it  may  be  during  a  period  of  social 
ferment,  it  is  sure  to  prove  hollow  at  last.  It  is 
a  remark  of  Matthew  Arnold  that  the  English 
poets  of  the  beginning  of  this  century  did  not 
know  enough  ;  there  is  passion,  imagination,  music, 
in  their  work,  but  not  enough  broad  knowledge  of 

life.  Of  several  of  them,  at  all  events,  —  Byron, 
Shelley,  Keats,  —  this  remark  is  certainly  true. 

This  eanou  applies  to  all  high  art.  The  artist 
strives  to  Bee  and  show  the  truth;  to  represent 
the  inmost  reality  of  things.  This  is  so  even  when 
his  imagination  travels  outside  the   range   of  all 


158    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

experience  and  the  personages  of  its  creation  are 
extra-human  or  super-human.  Milton,  we  may  be 
sure,  had  no  doubt  of  the  existence  of  Satan  and 
of  a  series  of  stupendous  moral  relations,  events, 
and  consequences  substantially  like  those  he  has 
put  into  Paradise  Lost.  Readers  of  to-day  who 
cannot  share  his  faith  must  doubtless  lose  some- 
thing of  the  power  of  his  poem.  As  for  Dante, 
they  said  of  his  face :  "  Eccovi !  That  man  has 
been  in  hell ! "  If  there  be  any  exceptions  to  this 
requirement  of  essential  truth,  they  must  be  found 
in  some  of  the  more  purely  fanciful  forms  of  lit- 
erature. Perhaps  the  question  "Is  it  true?"  would 
have  little  obvious  relevancy  if  asked,  for  instance, 
of  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner,  or  Shakspere's 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  Yet  even  these  have 
a  certain  kind  of  truth;  they  have  at  least  the 
truth  of  consistency.  Everything  that  Puck  or 
Oberon  does  and  says  in  the  play  is  in  harmony  with 
the  conception  of  his  character.  The  conception 
of  the  character,  too,  is  definite  and  intelligible, 
only  we  have  nothing  quite  like  it  in  our  experi- 
ence. Titania  and  Oberon,  for  instance,  are  such 
creatures  as  men  and  women  would  be  if  you 
should  cut  the  moral  sense  quite  out  of  them  and 
then  intensify  wonderfully  their  feeling  for  beauty. 
There  are  no  such  men  and  women  as  that,  exactly 
(though  a  man  like  Keats  comes  near  it),  but  if 
there  were,  we  feel  sure  they  would  act  as  Oberon 
and  Titania  do.     They  are  subject  to  only  a  part 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE      159 

of  the  laws  of  our  human  nature,  but  they  obey 
that  part.  So  in  the  Ancient  Mariner,  the  in- 
terest is  that  of  pure  romantic  fancy,  a  combina- 
tion of  beauty  and  wonder ;  but  the  incidents  that 
awaken  these  emotions  are  imagined  and  combined 
in  such  a  way  as  to  heighten  each  other,  and  their 
effect  on  the  Ancient  Mariner  is  just  such,  so  far 
as  we  can  judge,  as  it  would  have  been  upon  us. 
Indeed  the  very  illusion  which  it  is  the  purpose 
of  such  a  poem  to  produce  is  a  proof  of  its  truth. 
It  is  to  be  said,  moreover,  that  work  of  this  kind, 
though  it  may  be  exquisite,  or  even,  as  in  the  case 
of  these  two  examples,  wonderful,  is  never  quite 
the  highest  kind  of  literature.  We  do  not  give 
highest  rank  to  anything  which  is  not  a  faithful 
representation  of  this  actual  human  life  of  ours 
as  it  is  or  as  it  might  be.  The  Midsummer  Night? a 
Dream,  wonderful  as  it  is,  is  not  so  great  as  Hamlet. 

Does  this  requirement  of  fidelity  extend  to  the 
facts  of  life  as  well  as  to  its  truths  ?  The  facts, 
to  be  sure,  are  invented,  but  must  they  be  such 
facts  as  are  attested  by  our  common  experience  ? 
Must  literature  be  a  transcript  of  the  outward 
form  and  circumstance  of  life  as  well  as  of  its 
inner  spirit  and  truth?  Or,  if  we  hesitate  to  say 
it  must  be,  is  it  better  that  it  should  be  ?  Must  it 
approach  that  as  closely  as  possible,  and  aim  to 
reproduce  life  in  verisimilitude  as  far  as  it  can? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  involves  the  whole 
Bubject  of  realism  in  literature.     Realism  is  a  word 


160    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

used  with  a  good  deal  of  vagueness  and  variety 
of  meaning,  but  it  usually  signifies,  at  all  events, 
the  close  adherence  to  admitted  fact.  The  realist 
holds  that  all  the  truths  of  human  nature  are  best 
illustrated  not  in  extreme  or  unusual  cases,  but  in 
the  normal  and  common  experience  of  everyday 
life.  His  aim,  therefore,  is  to  reproduce  not  the 
exceptional  but  the  familiar,  to  give  us  such  a 
picture  of  the  outward  aspects  of  life  as  may  be 
instantly  verified  by  our  observation.  He  protests 
against  the  romantic  as  abnormal,  as  illustrating 
not  the  laws  of  life,  but  the  exceptions  to  those 
laws.  The  interest  in  the  romantic  he  depreciates 
as  a  form  of  curiosity  or  childish  wonder ;  natural, 
indeed,  to  a  certain  stage  of  mental  development, 
just  as  it  is  natural  for  children  to  like  fairy 
stories  and  wonder-books,  but  not  an  interest  of  a 
high  order  of  mind.  The  more  extreme  realist 
often  goes  further.  He  holds,  not  only  that  fidel- 
ity to  outward  fact  is  the  surest  test  of  literary 
excellence,  but  that  almost  any  and  all  facts  are 
suitable  for  literary  representation  and  may  be 
used  therefor. 

The  subject  of  realism  in  imaginative  literature 
is  most  frequently  discussed  with  reference  to  fic- 
tion, since  no  one  would  claim  that  poetry  should 
be  narrowly  realistic.  We  shall,  therefore,  recur 
to  it  in  connection  with  fiction  in  a  later  chapter. 
Here  it  may  suffice  to  notice  a  few  principles,  good 
of  all  imaginative  literature,  that  may  serve  to  in- 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE      161 

dicate  the  nature  and  limitations  of  what  is  called 
realism  and  the  conditions  in  which  it  is  to  be 
deemed  an  excellence. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  so  obvious  as  hardly  to 
need  statement  that  all  art  is  obliged,  by  the  na- 
ture of  its  effort  and  its  materials,  to  depart  some- 
what widely  from  an  exact  reproduction  of  life. 
It  cannot  transcribe  things  as  they  really  are. 
Take,  for  example,  conversation,  which  plays  so 
important  a  part  in  fiction  and  is  the  only  material 
of  drama.  Not  even  the  most  realistic  of  novelists 
would  venture  to  make  his  men  and  women  talk 
exactly  as  real  people  do.  They  talk  as  real  peo- 
ple talk  in  their  best  moments.  The  novelist  se- 
lects, combines,  gives  us  typical  bits  and  snatches 
of  conversation.  In  the  drama  it  is  obviously 
impossible  that  the  dialogue  should  be  an  exact 
transcript  from  life ;  not  even  the  most  trivial 
story  would,  in  actual  life,  ever  happen  to  be  told 
wholly  in  the  dialogue  of  the  actors,  as  in  the 
drama  it  must  always  be.  And  if  the  action  and 
actors  are  of  more  dignity,  the  conversation  must 
be  heightened  and  idealized.  Who  supposes  there 
ever  actually  was  on  this  earth  such  habitual,  con- 
sistent conversation  as  that  of  Shakspere's  char- 
acters ?  In  the  same  way,  any  narrative  of  events, 
if  it  have  any  art  at  all,  must  select,  exclude,  com- 
bine. The  most  extreme  devotee  of  naturalism 
cannot  tell  us  everything.  He  may  decline  —  as 
one  of  our  modern  novelists  does  —  to  tell  a  story, 


162    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

on  the  ground  that  stories  do  not  occur,  that  in  our 
real  life  events  do  not  weave  themselves  into  plots, 
but  only  go  on  for  a  time  and  then  stop;  yet  he 
must  choose  out  his  events  from  the  mass  of  which 
experience  is  composed,  and  he  must  do  it  on  some 
principle.  A  literal  transcript  of  any  man's  life  in 
all  its  infinite  detail  would  be  intolerable  even  if  it 
were  possible.  "Rose  sometime  after  daylight; 
floor  felt  cold  to  my  feet  on  emerging  from  bed; 
vexatious  pain  under  left  shoulder-blade;  pulled 
off  left-hand,  back,  suspender-button  on  dressing 
—  momentary  anger,  reminded  me  of  wrath  of 
Achilles ;  soap  nearly  gone  —  mem.  to  order  more ; 
repeated  Wordsworth's  poetry  while  tying  on  my 
shoes ;  thought  of  something  Miss  X.  said  last 
evening"  —  how  would  a  day's  record  on  that 
plan  look  in  literature  ?  And  yet  a  faithful  ac- 
count of  one  day's  experience  would  read  very 
much  after  that  fashion. 

Nor  will  the  artist,  thus  forced  to  choose  among 
the  infinite  number  of  facts  of  experience,  strive 
to  reproduce  any  of  them  with  exact  imitative 
fidelity.  For  the  object  of  all  art  is,  not  to  imi- 
tate, but  to  suggest ;  not  to  reproduce  the  real 
thing,  but  to  give  the  impression  which  the  real 
thing  makes  upon  the  artist.  This  is  true  even 
of  those  arts  often  called  imitative  —  painting, 
for  example.  Why  is  it  —  to  take  a  trifling  illus- 
tration, yet  a  just  and  apt  one  —  that  a  rose 
made  of  wax  or  paper  is  not  so  worthy  a  piece  of 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE      163 

art  as  a  painted  rose  ?  It  resembles  the  real  rose 
more  closely  than  the  painted  rose  ever  can. 
Indeed  it  may  resemble  the  real  rose  so  closely, 
its  leaves  so  delicately  shaded,  so  crisp  and 
fragile,  the  very  appearance  of  dew  upon  them, 
that  as  you  saw  the  two  beside  each  other  a  few 
steps  away,  you  might  think  the  waxen  rose  the 
real  one  from  which  the  other  had  been  copied. 
But  if  you  knew  it  were  not  real,  while  you  might 
think  it  a  pretty  thing  enough,  you  would  not 
for  a  moment  think  of  comparing  it  as  a  work  of 
art  with  the  painting  beside  it.  And  why  not  ? 
Doubtless  there  are  other  and  minor  reasons  — 
the  waxen  rose  is  not  permanent,  it  will  not  last 
so  long  as  the  painted  rose ;  and  other  things 
being  equal,  permanence  is  an  element  of  value 
in  art  product.  Then  it  is  much  more  easily  made 
than  the  painted  rose,  it  does  not  evince  so  much 
skill ;  and  skillful  workmanship,  technique,  any 
evidence  of  difficulties  overcome  by  trained  power, 
is  always  a  ground  of  admiration.  But  these  are 
not  the  chief  reasons  why  we  do  not  esteem  the 
waxen  rose;  the  chief  reason  is  that  it  aims  to 
deceive  us,  and  so  does  not  appeal  to  the  artistic 
sense  at  all.  For  it  is  implied  in  the  very  con- 
ception of  art  that  we  should  recognize  its  crea- 
tions to  be  representations  of  reality,  but  not 
the  reality  itself.  This  antithesis  with  nature  is 
necessary  to  the  definition  of  art.  Painters  never 
aim  to  trick  the  eye.     They  could   easily  enough 


164    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

if  they  wished.  Any  ordinary  scene-painter  can 
paint  you  an  alcove  or  arched  recess  on  a  fiat  wall 
so  naturally  that,  fifty  feet  away,  your  eye  will 
be  deceived ;  but  no  master  ever  would  do  it.  A 
certain  Belgian  artist  named  Wiertz  attained  won- 
derful facility  in  this  kind  of  optical  delusion, 
—  painting  a  dog  lying  half  outside  the  kennel 
door  and  growling  so  that  you  step  back  in  alarm 
lest  the  brute  walk  out,  or  scantily  ^  clad  women 
leaning  from  balconies  to  offer  you  a  rose,  with 
such  startling  solidity  of  appearance  that  you 
look  about  to  make  sure  where  you  are,  —  but 
this  is  not  great  painting.  Perhaps  the  simplest 
and  severest  test  of  this  representative  character 
of  all  art  may  be  found  in  that  art  most  purely 
mimetic,  —  the  art  of  acting.  We  speak  sometimes 
of  the  illusion  of  the  stage,  but  there  is  no  such 
thing.  The  actor,  if  his  art  be  genuine,  never  aims 
at  that.  The  man  and  the  woman  I  see  on  the 
stage  are  not  Romeo  and  Juliet ;  I  must  not  think 
they  are.  If  I  am  betrayed  into  thinking  so, 
what  business  have  I  staring  at  their  endear- 
ments ?  I  must  be  convinced  that  this  is  not 
life,  or  I  shall  feel  decidedly  cle  trop,  or  I  ought 
to.  Nor  must  I  be  reminded  that  this  is  Mr.  A.  B. 
and  Miss  C.  D.  If  it  were  they  in  their  private 
capacity  as  citizens,  why  then  the  proper  thing 
for  me  to  do  would  be  to  call  in  the  police.  It  must 
evidently  be  for  me  a  representation  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  purely  an  animated  picture  of  their  love. 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE      165 

Now  this  rule  of  art,  that  its  effect  depends 
upon  our  consciousness  of  its  representative  char- 
acter, is  as  true  of  literature  as  of  the  other  and 
more  imitative  arts.  The  action,  the  passion,  the 
persons  depicted  in  literature,  are  thought  of  not 
as  actual  and  personal,  but  as  representative  and 
universal.  This  is  true  even  of  those  forms 
of  literature  which  would  seem  to  be  the  most 
direct  expression  of  individual  passion.  We  some- 
times say,  indeed,  in  commending  the  sincerity  of 
lyric  poetry  that  it  is  the  immediate  and  spontane- 
ous utterance  of  the  poet's  passionate  love  or  grief. 
But  it  never  is.  It  cannot  be.  The  very  fact 
that  the  poet  can  treat  his  emotion  in  artistic 
fashion,  can  give  it  measured  and  calculated  ex- 
pression, implies  that  it  is  not  the  first  warm  out- 
pouring of  his  passion.  Nor  do  we  really  think 
of  it  as  such.  The  lyric  that  I  so  much  admire 
is  not  for  me  the  cry  of  Mr.  Robert  Burns  or 
Mr.  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  in  impassioned  joy  or 
pain.  If  it  were,  I  should  lose  all  artistic  sym- 
pathy in  personal  sympathy;  I  should  forget  the 
poetry  in  gladness  or  pity  for  the  poet.  Doubt- 
less the  emotion,  in  the  case  of  the  lyric  poet, 
must  have  been  genuine ;  but  he  must  have  lived 
through  it  and  be  able  to  look  back  upon  it  before 
he  can  himself  give  it  artistic  treatment;  and  I 
must  regard  it,  not  as  a  personal  confidence  of 
the  poet,  but  as  universal,  as  part  of  the  general 
passion  of  humanity,  before  I  can  have  any  appre- 


166     PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

ciation  of  it  as  literature.  Art,  to  use  Hamlet's 
admirable  figure,  holds  the  mirror  up  to  nature ; 
but  it  is  always  an  image  that  we  see  in  the 
mirror  and  not  the  reality  itself.  The  object  is 
presented  to  us  imaginatively,  in  its  universal 
relations. 

What,  then,  is  the  relation  of  art  to  fact  ?  How 
closely  must  the  image  resemble  the  object  which 
it  reflects  ?  Unable  to  render  all  the  infinite  detail 
of  any  object  or  phase  of  life,  how  shall  the  writer 
choose  among  his  facts  ?  The  simple  answer 
would  seem  to  be  that  he  will  choose  and  combine 
with  a  view  to  convey  to  his  reader  whatever  in 
the  object  he  is  representing  has  most  interested 
and  moved  himself.  Wishing  to  render  the  emo- 
tion which  the  object,  the  person,  or  experience 
has  awakened  in  him,  he  will  render  it  by  those 
facts  which  seem  to  him  most  significant  of  the 
emotion.  But  the  object  will  not  appear  to  him  in 
quite  the  same  relations  as  it  does  to  the  next 
writer ;  different  men  are  impressed  by  different 
traits  of  the  same  object,  person,  or  experience. 
And  each  artist  reproduces  the  meaning  or  sug- 
gestion which  the  object  has  for  him,  selecting 
only  such  features  as  tend  to  render  that  and 
excluding  all  others.  Thus  there  is  inevitably 
introduced  into  literature  a  subjective  and  idealiz- 
ing quality  which  removes  it  at  once  from  any- 
thing like  exact  realistic  reproduction.  Nor  is  this 
all.     In  most  cases  —  in   all   literature   of  a  high 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE      167 

order  —  in  the  endeavor  to  express  the  emotional 
power  of  his  object,  the  writer  carries  this  idealiz- 
ing process  somewhat  further.  We  all  know  that 
individual  objects  often  seem  to  suggest  a  more 
perfect  beauty  than  they  possess.  It  is  the  very 
nature  of  beautiful  things  to  suggest  something 
more  and  higher ;  there  is  a  certain  infinity  in  all  our 
best  emotion.  We  have  a  type  of  beauty  vaguely 
in  our  minds,  which  only  rarely  seems  to  be  actu- 
ally realized  in  nature.  Beyond  what  we  see,  we 
feel  vaguely  possibilities  not  yet  known.  This  is 
not  sentiment ;  it  is  a  familiar  fact  of  our  nature, 
which  any  man  may  verify  for  himself  before  the 
splendors  of  a  sunset,  under  the  solemn  arch  of  a 
midnight  sky,  or  in  the  presence  of  the  heaving 
expanse  of  sea.  Great  beauty  always  suggests 
infinity.  Now  the  poet  or  the  novelist  must  often 
strive  to  heighten  and  idealize  his  object  so  far 
as  to  give  it  something  of  this  power  of  infinite 
suggestion.  Great  art  always  does  this.  Cordelia, 
Imogen,  Kosalind,  Viola,  and  in  lesser  degree  lesser 
creations  like  Beatrix  Esmond  and  Romola,  —  they 
are  real  women  to  our  thought,  their  character  and 
conduct  we  recognize  as  true  to  the  deepest  laws  of 
human  nature;  yet  they  are  disengaged  from  com- 
monplace, they  have  a  power  such  as  real  persons 
cannot  have,  of  infinite  suggestion  and  inspiration. 
So  long  as  we  have  this  idealizing  tendency, 
naturally  reaching  out  to  a  perfection  that  we 
cannot  see,  it  is  surely  legitimate  for  the  poet  and 


168     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

the  novelist  to  use  it.  If  he  drop  out  of  his  picture 
some  literal  facts  of  life  and  heighten  others,  he 
is  only  doing  what  we  all  do  when  we  contemplate 
in  imagination  the  objects  of  our  admiration  and 
love. 

Now  the  only  limit  to  be  imposed  upon  these 
processes  of  selection  and  of  idealization  is  the 
canon  of  truth  already  discussed  in  the  earlier  sec- 
tions of  this  chapter.  The  writer  must  select  and 
combine  his  facts  in  fidelity  to  the  essential  truth 
of  human  nature.  If  he  prefer  to  take  them  from 
the  more  familiar  fields  of  observation  and  experi- 
ence, and  to  group  them  in  no  startling  or  unex- 
pected combinations,  very  well.  And  he  may  call 
that  realism,  if  he  wish.  There  is  very  excellent 
literature  of  that  kind,  especially  in  the  modern 
novel  of  society.  Jane  Austen,  Thackeray,  — for 
in  spite  of  Mr.  Howells's  protest,  I  think  he  must 
acknowledge  Thackeray  as  a  realist  and  a  brother, 
—  Mr.  Howells  himself,  may  afford  us  examples. 
But  there  is  no  reason  why  the  writer  of  this 
school  should  depreciate  his  neighbor  who  finds 
his  own  emotions  more  readily  stirred,  and  con- 
cludes therefore  that  he  can  more  readily  stir  his 
reader's,  by  the  more  universal  and  striking,  or 
by  the  larger,  more  heroic  phases  of  human  life. 
If  he  will  be  careful  not  to  contradict  character 
by  circumstance,  not  to  make  his  persons  feel  as 
in  the  given  situation  they  could  not,  or  to  repre- 
sent   thpir    feeling    as    issuing    in    impossible   ac- 


INTELLECTUAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     169 

tion,  —  if,  in  short,  he  will  hold  by  the  laws  of 
human  nature,  he  may  find  his  facts  where  he 
will.  The  object  of  imaginative  literature  is  to 
arouse  emotion.  Facts  are  of  value  only  for  that 
purpose.  If  strong  and  healthy  emotions  are  ex- 
cited by  the  spectacle  of  action  in  unusual  exi- 
gency, by  sympathy  with  the  higher  reaches  and 
supreme  moments  of  human  effort,  then  certainly 
the  dramatist  or  novelist  is  not  to  be  debarred 
from  using  such  circumstances.  Eomance  has  as 
much  warrant  as  the  most  staid  and  realistic  com- 
monplace. 

It  is  of  course  to  be  remembered  that,  as  we 
have  seen  in  a  previous  chapter,  not  all  emotions 
are  of  the  same  rank ;  and  the  realist  is  right  in 
his  assertion  that  the  emotion  of  wonder  or  curi- 
osity is  not  of  high  literary  value.  No  book,  there- 
fore, which  derives  its  interest  mainly  from  the 
strangeness  of  its  incident  or  the  ingenuity  of  its 
plot  can  ever  take  high  rank  as  literature.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  we  must  urge  that  the  interest 
which  arises  from  verisimilitude,  from  the  mere 
fidelity  with  which  commonplace  life  is  depicted, 
is  also  not  of  much  value.  Too  often  the  realist, 
recognizing  this,  and  unable  to  disclose  the  power 
and  charm  that  underlie  the  commonplace  exter- 
nals of  life,  resorts  to  the  coarse,  crude,  or  eccen- 
tric, to  phases  of  life  doubtless  common  enough, 
but  not  noble  or  even  pleasant.  Modern  novelists 
tickle  our  fancy  with  oddities   of  character,  with 


170     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

freakish  psychology,  with  weak  or  vulgar  charac- 
ters hopelessly  caught  in  some  tragic  net  of  fate  — ■ 
with  everything  except  sane,  wholesome,  normal 
character.  They  forget  that  great  literature  can 
never  be  made  out  of  such  material  as  this ;  that 
the  supreme  creations  of  imagination  are  not  eccen- 
tric or  exceptional,  but  illustrate  those  broad  laws 
of  human  nature  that  are  good  for  all  time.  Worse 
yet,  some  writers  give  us  haggard,  repulsive,  de- 
graded pictures  of  life,  humanity  in  its  debased  or 
diseased  forms,  painted  with  resolute  fidelity.  To 
do  us  English-speaking  people  justice,  it  must  be 
said  that  we  do  not  accomplish  much  of  this  sort 
of  work  ourselves;  but  every  now  and  then  we 
have  a  spasm  of  admiring  other  people  who  do. 
Ibsen,  for  example  —  it  would  be  hard  to  discover 
anything  more  depressing,  more  likely  to  produce 
in  a  healthy  mind  a  mixture  of  weariness  and 
disgust,  than  much  of  his  realistic  work;  yet  it 
has  received  high  praise. 

One  statement,  sometimes  made  and  oftener  im- 
plied by  extreme  realists,  must  be  emphatically 
denied,  —  that  all  human  life,  meaning  thereby 
anything  and  everything  that  men  and  women  do 
or  say  or  think,  is  fit  material  for  art.  That  would 
be  true  of  science.  Science  does  want  to  know  all 
facts,  to  be  able  ultimately  to  classify  and  explain 
everything.  But  literature,  it  cannot  be  too  often 
said,  is  not  a  science,  but  an  art.  It  aims,  either 
primarily  or  incidentally,  to  move  the   emotions; 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE      171 

it  therefore  selects  and  combines  under  the  laws  of 
beauty  and  truth.  It  does  not  give  us  everything  •, 
it  would  be  no  better  than  nature  if  it  did.  It  is 
idle  to  say  that  all  things  which  actually  occur  are 
equally  adapted  to  its  purpose.  Literature,  like  all 
other  art,  must  be  ideal  in  that  it  is  never  a  bare 
transcript,  but  rather  presents  such  a  selection  and 
combination  of  facts  as  will  suggest  some  emotion 
better  than  the  unselected  and  uncombined  facts  of 
actual  life  can ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  will  be 
realistic  in  that  the  facts  by  which  this  emotion  is 
suggested  are  a  truthful  expression  of  human  nature. 
But  the  greatness  of  the  literature  will  depend  not 
on  the  facts,  whether  familiar  or  romantic,  but  upon 
the  amount  and  quality  of  the  emotion  the  work 
excites,  and  upon  the  number  and  importance  of 
the  truths  it  embodies.  Its  truths  and  its  emotion 
may  be  common,  in  the  sense  that  they  are  univer- 
sal ;  but  the  truths  will  not  be  small  or  trivial,  the 
emotion  will  not  be  depressing  or  debased. 

The  word  realism,  which,  as  already  said,  is  used 
with  considerable  vagueness,  often  bears  in  criti- 
cal discussion  two  quite  different  meanings.  It  is 
sometimes  contrasted  with  idealism.  In  this  sense 
realism  denotes  the  tendency  to  depict  things  as 
they  are,  with  special  fidelity  to  their  outward  ap- 
pearance and  relations;  while  idealism  strives  to 
render  their  inner  meaning  and  suggestion.  At 
other  times  realism  is  contrasted  with  romanticism. 
Here  realism  denotes  the  tendency  to  take  your 


172    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

facts  —  whatever  truths  and  emotion  are  embodied 
in  them  —  from  common  life,  to  keep  within  the 
limits  of  the  familiar,  and  usually  of  the  present ; 
while  romanticism  takes  its  facts  from  the  strange, 
the  heroic,  and  usually  from  the  past.  But  al- 
though realism  may  be  contrasted  with  idealism, 
as  in  the  first  of  these  definitions,  there  is  no  es- 
sential contradiction  between  the  two.  Any  great 
work  of  art  will  exhibit  both.  That  is,  it  reveals 
truth  that  has  power  to  charm,  or  inspire,  or  in 
some  way  lift  us  above  the  dead  level  of  daily 
experience ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  facts  of 
external  life  in  which  this  truth  is  embodied  are 
observed  and  rendered  with  fidelity.  That  is, 
doubtless,  the  highest  art  which  discloses  most  of 
truth  within  conditions  which  we  recognize  at  once 
as  real. 

The  ideal  element  is,  indeed,  the  more  impor- 
tant; that  we  must  insist  upon.  There  maybe  a 
great  poem  so  divorced  from  the  outward  facts  of 
actual  life  as  hardly  to  observe  the  dictates  of 
realism  at  all;  Spenser's  Faery  Queen,  Shakspere's 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Coleridge's  Ancient 
Mariner,  are  examples.  But  there  can  be  no  very 
great  literature  which  does  not  reveal  or  suggest 
some  truths  loftier  or  more  profound  than  we  get 
sight  of  on  the  level  of  our  ordinary  life  —  without, 
in  a  word,  some  power  to  disclose  the  ideal.  Why 
is  it  that  —  to  take  familiar  examples  —  Addison, 
Steele,  Pope,  Thomson,  and  the  other  early  eigh- 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     173 

teenth-century  writers  are  felt  by  most  men  to  be 
of  less  value,  not  only  than  Shakspere  and  Mil- 
ton,' but  than  Carlyle,  Buskin,  Tennyson,  Brown- 
ing? Not  primarily  because  of  any  inferiority  of 
form,  but  because,  as  we  say,  they  have  not  so 
much  for  the  highest  part  of  us.  Their  style  is 
generally  admirable ;  their  teaching,  such  as  it 
is,  is  clear  and  positive;  but  their  emotions  are 
shallow ;  their  thoughts  though  clear  and  definite 
are  narrow  and  mundane ;  they  do  not  touch  the 
deepest  or  highest  things  of  our  nature. 

But  while  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true  that  the 
realistic  motive,  the  determination  to  render  facts 
as  they  are,  is  always  helpful  as  a  guide  and  cor- 
rective in  literature.  The  true  artist  will  always 
work  for  the  expression  of  ideals,  but  he  will  strive 
to  express  them  in  the  same  way  that  nature  does. 
When  he  deliberately  forsakes  or  falsifies  fact,  he  is 
usually  on  the  wrong  track.  He  may  not  have  the 
skill  to  render  the  fact  faithfully,  but  he  will  usu- 
ally try  to.  Thus  often  in  the  early  stages  of  an  art 
the  artist  is  evidently  possessed  by  his  emotion, 
but  he  has  not  the  skill  to  render  with  fidelity  the 
outward  details  in  which  that  emotion  is  exhibited. 
An  illustration  may  be  taken  from  the  sister  art  of 
painting.  No  one  can  see  the  work  of  some  of  the 
early  Christian  artists  of  Italy  without  admiring  its 
sincerity  and  deep  devotional  feeling,  while  seeing 
at  the  same  time  that  the  artist  cared  little  for  real- 
istic verisimilitude,  or  if  he  did  care,  had  no  skill  to 


174     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

attain  it.  Thus  in  the  series  of  simple,  almost  rude, 
pictures  of  the  last  scenes  in  the  life  of  Jesus 
painted  by  Fra  Angelico  in  the  cells  of  the  mon- 
astery of  San  Marco,  there  is  no  skill  of  perspec- 
tive, no  power  to  paint  the  human  figure  with 
accuracy ;  sometimes,  as  in  the  picture  of  the 
smiting  of  the  Master,  there  is  not  even  any 
attempt  to  represent  the  details  of  the  scene  —  it 
is  enough  merely  to  suggest  the  hands  that  smite 
and  the  mouths  that  spit.  But  the  Divine  patience 
and  silence,  the  ineffable  pity  and  love,  the  deepest 
spiritual  meaning  of  those  scenes,  —  this  the  artist 
has  felt  and  rendered.  Such  art  has  in  it  the 
elements  of  highest  power,  though  the  artist  has 
not  learned  as  yet  to  reproduce  the  outward  scene 
as  it  was.  So  literature  begins  with  poetry,  which 
is  the  most  idealistic  variety  of  literature.  And 
with  this  earliest  poetry  myth  and  tradition  are 
largely  mingled ;  the  early  poet  is  intent  not  on  his 
facts,  but  on  the  meaning  of  his  facts.  Bent  on 
rendering  the  high  points  of  life,  he  does  not  repro- 
duce a  full  or  faithful  picture.  But  as  any  art  grows 
there  will  be  a  steady  increase  in  the  power  to  depict 
fact,  to  show  the  spiritual  meaning  in  the  real  thing. 
And  when  the  highest  stages  of  art  are  reached, 
idealism  and  realism,  fidelity  to  highest  meaning 
and  fidelity  to  fact,  work  together  in  harmony. 
This  union  can  be  seen  in  the  greatest  painters, — 
Raphael,  Michael  Angelo,  Tintoret ;  it  can  be  seen 
in  the  greatest  poets,  —  Shakspere,  Goethe,  Moliere. 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE      175 

The  tendency  to  realism  is  often  of  great  service 
to  art,  also,  when  idealism  is  degenerating  into 
conventionalism.  For  it  often  happens  that  the 
original  and  powerful  masters,  who  worked  from 
life,  come  to  be  regarded  as  models  to  be  slavishly 
imitated.  The  way  in  which  they  handled  their 
matter,  the  way  in  which  they  interpreted  life,  — 
these  come  to  be  taken  as  the  only  right  ways. 
They  stand  between  the  artist  and  truth;  and  he 
does  his  own  work,  and  measures  other  people's 
work,  not  by  nature  nor  by  principles  drawn 
directly  from  nature,  but  by  purely  formal  and 
conventional  standards.  The  seventeenth-century 
portrait  painters,  it  is  said,  used  often  to  paint  the 
hands  of  their  subjects,  not  from  the  real  hands 
of  the  sitter,  but  from  the  conventional  notion  of 
what  a  hand  ought  to  be.  Similarly  the  late  seven- 
teenth and  early  eighteenth  century  English  poets 
had  certain  formal  ways  of  looking  at  the  facts 
of  life  which  they  supposed  were  the  only  poetic 
ways.  Nature  they  considered  hardly  interesting 
at  all  unless  observed  from  the  standpoint  of  polite 
society.  It  was  good  to  suggest  pretty  analogies, 
or  to  decorate  a  graceful  and  edifying  morality ; 
but  it  was  not  good  in  itself.  Against  a  spurious 
idealism  like  this,  which  is  afraid  of  nature  and 
strives  to  keep  at  a  polite  distance  from  naked 
facts,  realism  is  quite  right  in  asserting  that  the 
highest  truth  and  deepest  emotion  are  to  be 
found  in  human  life  as  it  is.     Realism,  in  a  word 


176     PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

(as  contrasted  with  idealism),  is  always  serviceable 
in  guiding  the  methods  of  the  artist,  but  not  in 
deciding  his  ends.  The  essential  truths  of  human 
life,  the  great  emotions  and  the  great  principles 
which  form  the  ideal  ends  of  the  artist's  work, 
these  do  not  change  much  with  the  process  of  the 
centuries ;  but  the  external  circumstance  of  life, 
that  is  in  constant  change.  And  the  realists  are 
right  in  saying  that  the  artist  will  do  best  to  keep 
himself  open  to  this  change,  and  not  tie  himself 
up  to  the  standards  and  methods  of  an  age  that 
is  past ;  that  he  must  have  and  use  the  freedom  to 
express  life  as  he  really  sees  it  now,  not  as  other 
people  have  seen  it,  or  have  decided  it  ought  to  be 
seen.  This  rule  must  not  be  interpreted  so  nar- 
rowly as  to  shut  a  man  up  to  the  real  life  of  to-day 
for  his  material,  and  thus  exclude  all  historic  or 
romantic  themes  ;  but  it  is  still  true  that  the  tem- 
per in  which  any  really  original  writer  regards  his 
theme  will  be  the  temper  of  his  own  time.  The 
greatest  writers  do  not  strive  to  throw  themselves 
out  of  their  own  age.  Dante,  Chaucer,  Shak- 
spere,  Milton,  Goethe,  however  far  afield  they 
may  sometimes  have  gone  for  their  subjects,  are 
in  close  sympathy,  each  with  the  life  of  his  own 
time. 

We  may  then  agree  with  the  strictures  of  the 
realist  upon  an  idealism  that  has  passed  into  mere 
convention  or  tradition ;  it  needs  to  wake  up  and 
see  the  life  of  to-day,  aud  work  in  sympathy  with 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE      177 

that  life,  no  matter  how  it  may  violate  tradition 
in  doing  so.  But  we  take  issue  with  realism 
when  it  assumes  that  mere  representation  of  the 
outward  facts  of  life,  however  faithful  or  vivid 
that  representation,  or  mere  analysis  of  common- 
place motive  and  character,  however  true  and 
subtle  that  analysis,  can  ever  make  great  literature. 
And  if  we  refuse  to  think  the  work  of  Howells,  or 
Ibsen,  or  Zola  equal  to  that  of  Walter  Scott  or 
Thackeray,  it  is  not  because  we  object  to  their 
going  to  contemporary  life  for  themes  or  painting 
that  life  with  as  resolute  a  fidelity  as  they  choose ; 
but  because  in  that  life  they  fail  to  disclose  the 
elements  of  real  greatness  or  lasting  inspiration. 
And  they  fail  largely  because  they  work  in  the 
temper  of  the  analyst  or  scientific  observer  rather 
than  in  the  temper  of  the  artist.  The  imagination 
seems  often  to  have  little  to  do  in  their  writing ; 
they  are  observing  and  reporting  facts.  Some  of 
the  extreme  theorists  of  the  school,  indeed,  would 
pretend  to  nothing  more  than  that.  But  such 
writing  is  of  necessity  lacking  in  spiritual  insight 
and  depth  of  characterization.  The  writer  too 
often  lavishes  nice  technical  skill  and  acute  analy- 
sis upon  subjects  not  worth  his  labor.  Moreover, 
the  concentration  of  attention  upon  outward  cir- 
cumstance always  tends  to  an  undue  emphasis 
upon  unessential  details,  as  of  dress,  manner, 
speech ;  because  such  details  give  verisimilitude  and 
seem  to  make  the  picture  of  life  more  easily  recog- 


178    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

nizable.  Writers  of  this  school  are  generally 
masters  of  the  art  of  reproducing  conversation ; 
only  they  reproduce  it  as  a  phonograph  might.  It 
is  real,  but  it  is  not  always  significant  or  sugges- 
tive. Worse  yet  is  the  tendency  to  exhibit  the 
more  sensual  phases  of  experience,  especially  such 
as  are  high-colored  or  pronounced  in  effect,  simply 
because  to  a  sluggish  imagination  these  phases 
seem  more  real  than  any  other.  Disregarding  the 
deepest  and  most  normal  truths  of  life,  the  realist 
is  tempted  to  dwell  upon  the  great  outward  catas- 
trophe or  degradation  that  makes  us  shudder  or 
loathe.  Ibsen,  Zola,  and  Tolstoi  have  certainly 
not  always  escaped  this  temptation. 

What  has  been  said  will  indicate  our  estimate  of 
the  claims  of  realism  in  its  other  sense  —  the  sense 
in  which  it  is  contrasted  with  romanticism,  and 
insists  upon  adherence  to  common  and  usually  to 
contemporary  life,  in  preference  to  the  remote,  the 
strange,  or  heroic.  Romance  finds  its  highest  war- 
rant in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  natural  expression  of 
unusual  forces  of  character.  Great  passions  shape 
life  into  striking  forms,  great  character  handles 
the  facts  of  life  in  unforeseen  and  masterly  ways. 
It  is  not  the  strangeness  that  gives  chief  inter- 
est to  real  romance ;  it  is  what  that  strangeness 
reveals.  We  read  the  story  of  Napoleon  with 
wonder,  but  with  a  very  different  kind  of  wonder 
from  that  excited  by  the  Arabian  Nights.  When- 
ever romance   serves   to   exhibit  the  resource  and 


INTELLECTUAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE      179 

power  of  the  human  spirit  in  some  exigency,  it 
is  a  legitimate  motive  in  literature.  Men  will 
always  admire  it,  and  always  ought  to.  It  arouses 
and  dilates ;  it  fills  us  with  sympathy  for  strenuous 
endeavor,  with  joy  in  the  possibilities  of  life.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  may  get  a  convincing  proof  of 
the  flatness  of  mere  romantic  adventure,  howsoever 
wild,  by  trying  to  read  such  a  poem  as  one  of 
Southey's  big  romantic  epics,  say  the  Thalaba  or 
Curse  of  Kehama.  There  is  a  prodigious  amount 
of  incident  and  all  passing  strange;  but  there  is 
nothing  else,  and  the  most  startling  terrors  only 
make  us  yawn.  In  general,  whenever  the  element 
of  strangeness  is  thus  purely  circumstantial  and 
in  no  wise  a  test  of  the  force  of  human  character,  it 
has  but  slight  literary  value.  The  only  exceptions 
to  this  statement  would  be  found  in  those  occa- 
sional triumphs  of  pure  imagination  —  or  rather  of 
fancy  —  which  are  of  such  remarkable  beauty  or 
terror  as  to  be  their  own  justification.  Yet  even 
these  are  usually  short.  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner  could  hardly  be  prolonged  without  losing 
its  power.  Reason  may  fall  under  the  fascination 
of  Fancy  for  a  little,  but  it  will  not  abdicate  for 
long. 

This  form  of  realism,  which  is  opposed  to  roman- 
ticism and  insists  upon  adherence  to  the  present 
and  actual,  is  obviously  in  danger  of  falling  into 
flatness  and  dull  familiarity.  The  masters  know 
how  to  avoid  this  danger.     They  can  disclose  the 


180    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERAKY  CRITICISM 

pathos,  the  tragedy,  the  large  spiritual  results,  that 
are  implied  in  the  most  homely  and  familiar  life. 
No  poem  could  be  more  strictly  realistic,  more 
homely  and  narrow  in  circumstance,  for  instance, 
than  Wordsworth's  Michael — the  story  of  a  moun- 
tain shepherd,  who  was  forced  by  hard  poverty  to 
send  the  only  son  of  his  old  age  away  to  the  city, 
and  who  lived  on  in  stern  and  silent  loneliness 
among  the  hills  years  after  his  boy  had  gone  to 
the  bad.  Yet  Wordsworth  has  told  that  story  with 
such  an  austere  sincerity,  with  such  a  high,  patri- 
archal simplicity  of  manner,  that  it  seems  a  type  of 
the  primal  affections  and  the  universal  sorrows  of 
our  race.  Of  such  realism  as  this  we  can  never  have 
too  much.  But  too  often  the  writer,  unable  to  show 
the  great  in  the  familiar,  has  recourse  to  the  sensa- 
tional sides  of  common  life.  Insisting  on  adherence 
to  the  actual,  and  at  the  same  time  unable  to  com- 
mand the  interest  of  the  reader  by  a  pure  or  deli- 
cate art,  he  seeks  a  stimulus  in  the  cruder  facts  of 
life,  the  irregular  or  morbid  exercise  of  passion, 
the  excesses  of  vice.  It  is  significant  that  those 
writers  who  object  to  the  romantic  or  remote  in 
theme  are  often  themselves  most  fond  of  drastic 
effects.  M.  Zola,  who  objects  to  Walter  Scott  as 
too  heroic  and  unreal,  objects  to  him  also  as  flat 
and  wanting  in  flavor,  and  shrugs  his  shoulders 
over  the  Waverley  Novels,  as  "  litterature  de  pen- 
sionnat." 

We  say,  then,  in  summary,  that  literature  must 


INTELLECTUAL  ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     181 

be  faithful  to  the  truth  of  life,  and  that  its  value 
will  be  measured  largely  by  the  amount  of  such 
truth  which  it  contains.  But  imaginative  litera- 
ture need  not  be,  indeed  it  cannot  be,  rigidly  faith- 
ful to  the  external  facts  of  life,  since  it  attempts 
always  to  give  a  representation,  and  not  an  exact 
transcript,  of  life.  This  being  the  case,  it  may  be 
realistic,  either  in  the  sense  of  emphasizing  out- 
ward appearances  and  relations,  or  in  the  sense 
of  confining  itself  to  the  familiar;  it  must  be 
idealistic  in  the  sense  that  it  interprets  by  high 
ideals  the  facts  of  life  and  renders  their  spiritual 
significance ;  and  it  may  be  romantic  in  that  it 
finds  its  facts  in  the  fields  of  the  strange,  the 
heroic,  the  remote.  But  in  any  case  its  chief 
interest  will  reside  not  in  the  outer  facts  or  in  any 
mere  curiosity  or  wonder  they  may  excite,  but  in 
the  inner  truth  of  human  life,  which  these  facts 
may  be  shown  to  embody. 


CHAPTER  SIXTH 
The  Formal  Element  in  Literature 

I  have  a  thought  in  my  mind;  by  means  of 
symbols  I  suggest  a  similar  thought  to  your 
mind,  or  as  we  say  —  less  accurately  —  I  "  convey  " 
my  thought  to  you.  This  is  language,  spoken  or 
written ;  not,  thus  far,  literature.  I  have  an  emo- 
tion—  either  a  thought  touched  with  emotion,  or 
an  emotion  only  vaguely  connected  with  any  defi- 
nite thought;  by  means  of  written  symbols,  I  con- 
vey to  you  my  thought  and  its  emotion.  That  is 
literature.  If  the  primary  object  be  to  convey  the 
thought,  and  the  emotion  wherewith  it  is  touched 
be  a  secondary  consideration,  serving  only  to  make 
the  thought  apprehended  more  pleasantly  or  more 
completely,  the  writing  is  some  form  of  prose 
literature,  as  history  or  criticism.  If,  on  the  other 
liand,  the  emotion  be  of  first  importance,  and  the 
thought  seems  to  take  place  in  your  mind  through 
avenues  of  feeling,  then  the  writing  is  some  form 
of  belles-lettres,  probably  either  poetry  or  fiction. 

How  shall  the  emotion  in  my  mind  be  conveyed 

to  yours  ?     In  real  life  we  may  sometimes  convey 

emotion   to    another    by   transferring   literally    to 

him  the  object  that  has  excited  our  emotion.     If 

182 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     183 

I  am  thrilled  for  a  moment  by  the  beauty  of  a 
rose,  I  may  hand  the  rose  to  you  and  thus  pre- 
sumably convey  to  you  my  feeling  of  its  beauty. 
But  no  art  can  thus  make  use  of  the  immediate 
objects  of  emotion;  least  of  all  can  the  literary  art. 
It  must  have  recourse  to  other  and  more  indirect 
means.  Now  the  sum  of  all  the  means  by  which 
the  writer  strives  to  convey  his  combined  thought 
and  emotion  to  the  reader  we  may  call  Literary 
Form. 

It  is  evident,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter,  that  no  emotion  can  be  excited  merely 
by  naming  it,  analyzing  it,  talking  about  it,  or 
thinking  of  it  in  the  abstract.  We  must  represent 
the  object  that  evokes  that  emotion.  All  means 
of  appeal  to  the  emotions,  therefore,  must  involve 
imagination;  this,  in  higher  or  lower  degree,  is 
essential  to  literary  form.  But  with  this  common 
element  of  imagination  there  may  be  endless  vari- 
ety in  the  means  used  to  excite  emotion.  Thus,  if 
I  would  make  you  feel  the  beauty  of  the  rose,  I 
may  try  to  do  nothing  else  than  give  you  a  vivid 
picture  of  it,  trusting  to  the  vividness  with  which 
I  can  suggest  to  your  imagination  its  sensuous 
charms  of  color,  texture,  form,  fragrance.  Or,  I 
may  rather  try  to  express  some  of  the  associated 
ideas  and  emotions  which  the  rose  suggests,  —  the 
bloom  of  youth,  the  gladness  of  hope,  the  pride  of 
beauty ;  or  perhaps,  rather,  the  pathos  of  the  rose, 
as   the   symbol   of    the   transiency   of    all    bright 


184      PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

things.  Which  of  these  means  I  should  choose 
would  depend,  of  course,  on  what  seemed  to  me 
the  most  impressive ;  and  thus  the  means  I  used, 
the  literary  form  of  my  work,  would  be  indirectly 
an  expression  of  my  own  personality. 

Moreover,  I  should  soon  find  certain  laws  of 
form  growing  out  of  the  nature  of  emotion. 
Knowing  that  emotion  cannot  be  conveyed  by 
describing  or  analyzing  it,  I  should  immediately 
discover  that  the  language  of  feeling  is  not  usually 
technical  or  abstract,  but  familiar  and  concrete; 
and  that  all  feeling  is  best  awakened  incidentally 
b}r  hints  and  suggestions,  and  not  by  direct  and 
avowed  appeal.  I  should  notice  further  that  an 
emotion  which,  like  that  produced  by  the  rose,  is 
passing  and  transitory,  not  one  of  the  deep-lying 
and  permanent  forces  of  life,  demands  a  certain 
brevity  and  grace  of  expression,  and  that  I  must 
beware  of  any  labored  or  protracted  effort  to  ex- 
cite it.  Other  and  very  different  emotions,  also, 
I  should  find  there  are  that  admit  but  very  few 
words,  being  too  deep  and  serious  for  anything  but 
a  certain  reticence  and  austerity  of  phrase ;  while 
yet  others  are  by  nature  voluble  and  expansive, 
and  can  be  best  expressed  at  length  with  profusion 
of  phrase  and  imagery.  I  should  discover,  also, 
that  words,  beside  their  primary  and  literal  mean- 
ing, have  all  sorts  of  secondary  suggestive  power 
and  association  subtly  bound  up  with  them;  that 
they  remind  us,  more   or   less  vaguely,  of   vastly 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     185 

more  than  they  rigidly  mean;  and  that  their 
artistic  use  depends  very  largely  on  a  nice  and 
instant  feeling  of  this  suggestive  power.  Words, 
moreover,  especially  when  combined,  have  emo- 
tional effects  proceeding  not  from  their  meaning 
but  from  their  sound.  I  should  notice,  therefore, 
that  the  need  of  combining  them,  whether  in  prose 
or  poetry,  in  such  a  way  that  their  music  may 
heighten  the  emotion  to  be  conveyed  is  always  a 
very  important  and  difficult  part  of  the  problem  of 
literary  expression.  These  examples  may  serve  to 
suggest  the  multitude  of  considerations  involved  in 
the  attempt  to  express  emotion  by  language,  and 
the  consequent  indefinite  variations  in  literary  form. 
It  is  often  interesting  to  notice  how  form  changes 
with  every  changing  shade  of  feeling.  Here  are 
four  passages  expressive  of  the  emotion  of  pathos 
suggested  by  a  rose,  the  pathos  of  fast-fading  beauty. 
The  first  is  from  Herrick's  familiar  song,  — 

"  Gather  ye  rosebuds  while  ye  may, 
Old  Time  is  still  a  flying  ; 
And  this  same  flower  that  smiles  to-day 
To-morrow  will  be  dying." 

Next,  with  a  slightly  deeper  note  of  feeling,  the 
closing  stanza  of  Waller's  Go,  Lovely  Rose,  — 

"Then  die,  that  she 
The  common  fate  of  all  things  rare 

May  read  in  thee : 
How  small  a  part  of  time  they  share, 
That  are  so  wondrous  sweet  and  fair." 


186     PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

Then  with  a  sad  but  austere  resignation,  quaint 
and  pious  George  Herbert,  — 

"  Sweet  Rose,  whose  hue,  angry  and  brave, 
Bids  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye, 
Thy  root  is  ever  in  its  grave, 
And  thou  must  die." 

And  last,  most  imaginative  by  far,  yet  most 
pathetic,  not  in  verse  but  in  a  sustained  rhyth- 
mical prose,  one  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  wonderful 
similes,  — 

"  So  have  I  seen  a  rose  newly  springing  from  the 
clefts  of  its  hood,  and  at  first  it  was  fair  as  the 
morning  and  filled  with  the  dew  of  heaven  like  a 
lamb's  fleece ;  but  when  a  ruder  breath  had  forced 
open  its  virgin  modesty,  and  dismantled  its  too 
youthful  and  unripe  retirements,  it  began  to  put  on 
darkness  and  to  decline  to  softness  and  the  symp- 
toms of  a  sickly  age ;  it  bowed  the  head  and  broke 
its  stalk,  and  at  night,  having  lost  some  of  its 
leaves  and  all  its  beauty,  it  sank  into  the  portion 
of  weeds  and  outworn  faces.  The  same  is  the  por- 
tion of  every  man  and  every  woman." 

In  these  passages  it  will  be  noticed  how  the  same 
general  emotion  is  variously  modified  by  the  per- 
sonality of  the  different  men,  and  how  the  form 
changes  with  every  change  in  the  feeling  —  the 
Epicurean  gayety  of  the  first  two  poets  just  dashed 
with  a  shade  of  sadness  for  the  thought  that, 
though  to-day  we  eat  and  drink,  to-morrow  we  die  ; 
the   grave,   half-averted,    half-censorious    look    of 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     187 

Herbert,  facing  the  beauty  with  stern  assertion  of 

its  vanity,  — 

"Thou  mtist  die  !  " 

and  the  rich  and  lingering  imagination  of  Jeremy 
Taylor,  which  calls  into  view  image  after  image, 
delaying  with  fond  longing  and  regret  upon  each, 
yet  never  introducing  a  word  or  turn  of  phrase  that 
does  not  somehow  deepen  the  feeling  of  quiet  but 
profound  and  unchangeable  sadness  at  the  tran- 
siency of  all  we  admire  and  love.  Similarly,  but 
on  a  broader  scale,  it  is  matter  of  common  observa- 
tion that  a  change  in  the  tone  of  national  feeling 
will  result  in  an  entire  change  in  literary  form. 
The  tyrannous  excellence  of  Pope's  verse  had 
nearly  fixed  the  rhyming  ten-syllable  couplet  upon 
-English  poetry  as  our  one  metrical  form ;  but  with 
a  fundamental  revolution  in  English  feeling  that 
form  became  instantly  impossible.  To  attempt  to 
put  most  of  the  verse  of  Burns  or  of  Shelley  or  of 
Tennyson  into  the  manner  of  Pope  would  be  mani- 
festly absurd. 

These  considerations  will  show  us  that  form  can 
hardly  be  considered  without  reference  to  the  sub- 
stance of  writing.  Expression  manifestly  implies 
something  expressed ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  sepa- 
rate the  charm  of  the  one  from  the  charm  of  the 
other.  We  often  say,  indeed,  that  different  men 
express  the  same  thought  in  different  ways.  That 
may  perhaps  be  possible  when  what  is  expressed 
is  a  purely  intellectual  proposition;  a=b  and  b=a 


188     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

are  perhaps  two  different  ways  of  saying  the  same 
thing.  But  the  moment  emotion  enters  into  expres- 
sion, any  change  of  form  implies  change  of  sub- 
stance. Change  ever  so  slightly  the  form  of  good 
poetry,  and  its  emotional  effect  changes  at  once, 
often  altogether  disappears.  This  is  why  no  poetry 
can  ever  be  adequately  translated.  To  a  less  de- 
gree, though  no  less  certainly,  the  same  thing  is 
true  of  prose.  No  two  specimens  of  literary  form 
can  ever  be  really  equivalent.  Why,  it  may  not  be 
easy  to  say.  "  Why,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "  should 
it  be  one  thing,  in  its  effect  upon  the  emotions,  to 
say  with  the  philosopher  Spinoza,  Felicitas  in  eo 
consistit  quod  homo  suum  esse  conservare  potest  — 
'  Man's  happiness  consists  in  his  being  able  to  pre- 
serve his  own  essence,'  and  quite  another  thing  in 
its  effect  upon  the  emotions  to  say  with  the  Gospel, 
'  What  is  a  man  advantaged  if  he  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  lose  himself,  forfeit  himself  ? '  How 
does  the  difference  arise  ?  I  cannot  tell,  and  I  am 
not  much  concerned  to  know ;  the  important  thing 
is  that  it  does  arise." 

We  can  hardly  say,  therefore,  with  accuracy 
that  a  poem,  or  indeed  any  work  of  art,  is  to  be 
admired  solely  for  its  form  and  not  at  all  for  its 
meaning  ;  since  the  form  is  nothing  but  the  vehicle 
by  which  that  meaning  is  conveyed.  When  we 
say  that  we  admire  writing  for  its  style  but  not  for 
its  thought,  we  usually  mean  only  that  the  element 
of  thought  in  the  writing  is   at  a  minimum,  the 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     189 

writer  having  succeeded  in  expressing  certain 
lighter  phases  of  emotion  while  giving  us  little 
intellectual  significance.  But  there  is  never  much 
vigor  in  work  thus  afflicted  with  mental  anaemia. 
Sometimes,  it  is  true,  an  author  of  really  great 
ability  gets  an  unfortunate  —  and  usually  an  unjust 
—  reputation  for  mere  style.  That  is  especially 
liable  to  be  the  case  with  men  of  a  certain  intensity 
of  temperament,  whose  imagination  and  emotions 
overbalance  their  logical  faculty.  Such  men  often 
have  an  eagerness  or  profuseness  of  utterance 
fitted  to  convey  their  feelings  rather  than  the  truth 
that  underlies  those  feelings.  Mr.  Ruskin,  for 
example,  though  certainly  one  of  the  very  first 
masters  of  English,  has  often  been  so  intent  to 
set  forth  emotional  and  moral  values,  that  he 
has  not  enough  emphasized  the  intellectual  and 
logical  elements  in  what  he  had  to  say,  and  thus 
has  pleased  and  stimulated  his  readers  when  he 
has  not  convinced  them.1  Yet  it  is  seldom  if  ever 
that  any  very  great  work  of  art  impresses  us  prin- 
cipally by  the  excellence  of  its  form.  The  old 
maxim,  ars  maxima  est  celare  artem,  is  true.  The 
greatest  art  is  always  unobtrusive,  and  works  as  a 

1  Mr.  Ruskin  himself  is  painfully  aware  of  this.  "No  man 
is  more  intensely  vain  than  I  am  ;  but  my  vanity  is  set  on  hav- 
ing it  known  of  me  that  I  am  a  good  master,  not  in  having  it 
said  of  me  that  I  am  a  smooth  author.  My  vanity  is  never 
more  wounded  than  in  being  called  a  fine  writer,  meaning  — 
that  nobody  need  mind  what  I  say."  —  "Ariadne  Florentina," 
Ch.  I.  The  later  editions  of  his  books  Mr.  Ruskin  has  pruned 
of  all  rhetoric  with  excessive  severity. 


190     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

means,  unobserved  itself,  to  emotional  ends.  No 
criticism,  therefore,  that  is  penetrative  or  illumi- 
nating can  ever  confine  itself  to  matters  of  work- 
manship. All  the  rules  of  formal  criticism  though 
never  so  skillfully  applied  fail  to  disclose  the  secret 
or  the  charm  of  genius.  Similarly,  when  any  art 
reaches  the  stage  in  which  it  claims  admiration 
chiefly  for  technical  skill,  then  that  art  is  declin- 
ing. The  history  of  poetry  in  the  last  century  or 
of  Italian  painting  in  the  seventeenth  century  would 
illustrate  this  statement.  It  is  a  suggestive  re- 
mark of  Walter  Pater 1  that  the  difference  between 
good  art  and  bad  may  depend  upon  form,  but  not 
the  difference  between  great  and  small  art. 

But  while  form  and  substance  are  thus  subtly 
implicated,  they  are  not  the  same.  Form  we  have 
defined  as  the  sum  of  all  the  means  by  which 
thought  and  emotion  are  conveyed  from  one  mind 
to  another.  Now,  obviously,  the  means  are  not 
the  thought  and  emotion.  A  man's  thought  and 
feeling  may  be  in  excess  of  his  power  to  convey 
them.  If  literature  expressed  only  pure  thought 
there  might  not  be  this  disparity  between  mental 
content  and  power  of  utterance.  For  language  is 
the  natural  expression  of  thought,  not  of  feeling. 
If  I  have  a  thought  or  observe  a  fact,  the  fact  or 
thought  spontaneously  takes  shape  in  words  in  my 
mind  and  is  readily  conveyed  to  another ;  but 
emotion  does  not  thus  spontaneously  shape  itself 
1  "  Essay  on  Style." 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     191 

into  language,  and  is  not  naturally  conveyed  by 
propositions.  In  writing,  therefore,  in  which  the 
intellectual  element  largely  predominates  the  de- 
mands upon  expression  will  be  simpler ;  we  shall 
require  only  that  the  phrase  of  the  writer  accu- 
rately report  his  thought.  And  that  it  usually 
does.  Obscurity  in  writing,  in  ninety-nine  cases 
out  of  a  hundred,  comes  from  obscurity  in  thinking. 
So  true  is  it  that  language  is  the  natural  expres- 
sion of  thought,  and  so  certain  that  no  considera- 
ble processes  of  thought  can  be  carried  on  in  the 
mind  without  language,  that  any  man  who  has  a 
clear  train  of  thought  in  his  own  mind,  even  though 
it  be  a  long  and  intricate  train  of  thought,  can 
usually  express  it  clearly  if  he  will  make  the 
requisite  effort.  But  he  cannot  express  his  emo- 
tions. For  language  can  only  express  emotion  by 
first  translating  it  into  terms  of  thought.  The 
attempt  to  do  this  must  always  be  a  kind  of  sug- 
gestion rather  than  of  direct  representation;  and 
this  process  calls  for  all  the  resources  of  Form. 
Sometimes  by  rhythm,  cadence,  or  other  musical 
quality;  sometimes  by  striking  emphasis  or  ar- 
rangement ;  sometimes  by  analogies  which  have  a 
subtle  power  upon  the  imagination ;  sometimes  by 
a  turn  of  phrase  that  thrills  us  and  we  cannot  tell 
why  —  by  manifold  inflections  and  modulations,  it 
carries  into  our  sympathy  the  emotional  mood  of 
the  writer.  Now  in  their  command  of  the  re- 
sources of  language  by  which  this  emotion  essen- 


192    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

tial  to  literary  effect  is  to  be  produced,  men  differ 
greatly.  Thus  an  author  of  really  great  ability 
may  be  deficient  in  form.  It  is  probable  that  there 
are  not  many  entirely  mute  inglorious  Miltons  in 
the  world,  marked  susceptibility  to  poetic  feel- 
ing being  usually  accompanied  by  some  gift  of 
utterance ;  yet  it  is  unquestionable  that  the  power 
of  expression  is  not  always  commensurate  with 
what  is  to  be  expressed.  Obviously  if  it  were, 
every  man  might  be  a  man  of  letters,  for  we  all 
have  emotions  that  poetry  could  be  made  of,  and 
has  been  made  of.  The  very  fact  that  makes  pos- 
sible the  appeal  of  literature  is  that  there  are 
thousands  of  readers  who  feel  —  or  they  wouldn't 
read  —  to  one  writer  who  can  express. 

Perhaps,  however,  it  may  be  asked,  How  do 
you  know  that  any  author's  gift  of  utterance  is 
not  adequate  to  his  gifts  of  thought  and  feeling? 
Of  course  we  cannot  know  any  more  of  the  con- 
tents of  an  author's  mind  than  he  expresses ;  what 
reason  is  there,  then,  for  saying  there  is  any  more  ? 
What  warrant  have  we  for  saying  of  any  man,  of 
Browning,  for  example,  that  he  is  a  writer  of  great 
powers  but  deficient  in  form  ?  To  this  it  may 
be  answered  not  only  that  our  own  experience 
shows  us  it  is  often  difficult  to  tell  all  we 
know  or  feel,  but  also  that  there  are  many  evi- 
dences that  the  same  difficulty  frequently  con- 
fronts the  author.  Opacity  or  absolute  obscurity 
of  style,  it  is  true,  usually  implies  muddiness  or 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     193 

confusion  of  thought  in  the  writer;  but  a  clear 
and  strong  thinker  may  write  a  style  which  we  call 
labored,  or  difficult,  or  heavy.  We  get  his  thought, 
but  we  do  not  apprehend  it  with  ease  and  delight. 
Still  more  frequently  are  we  assured,  in  various 
ways,  that  a  writer  feels  deeply  and  urgently, 
while  yet  he  has  not  the  power  to  make  us  feel  so. 
He  may  assert  strongly  and  honestly  an  emotion 
which  he  cannot  impart;  he  may  present  actions 
and  relations  that  prove  his  sympathetic  apprecia- 
tion of  certain  phases  of  life,  while  yet  he  cannot 
make  us  share  that  sympathy.  That  is  the  case, 
I  think,  with  Browning.  In  short,  a  writer  may, 
in  many  ways,  evince  greater  feeling  than  he  can 
convey ;  and  this  is  to  be  deficient  in  form. 

If  these  statements  be  correct,  it  follows  that 
perfection  of  form  must  consist  in  the  ability  to 
convey  thought  and  emotion  with  perfect  fidelity. 
Form  is  outward  expression  of  inward  state,  and 
cannot  be  prized  for  anything  except  its  power 
to  express.  When  we  talk  of  the  beauty  of  lan- 
guage or  style,  we  must  be  thinking  of  its  mean- 
ing or  fitness ;  for  language  cannot  be  admired, 
as  handwriting  is,  for  some  quality  entirely  apart 
from  its  significance.  It  would  seem  undeniable, 
therefore,  that  language  approaches  perfection  in 
any  instance  just  in  proportion  as  it  expresses  the 
exact  meaning,  in  thought  and  emotion,  of  the  one 
who  uses  it.  It  renders  the  mental  content  and 
the  temper  of  the  writer  vividly,  and  it  renders 
o 


194    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

it  exactly  —  not  with  broad,  rough  effects,  but 
rather  with  delicate  shadings,  with  flexible  adap- 
tations, with  subtlety  and  precision.  Hence  the 
cardinal  virtues  of  all  good  writing  are  the  con- 
trasted qualities,  energy  and  delicacy.  Energy, 
in  order  to  arouse  the  reader's  attention,  and  to 
carry  into  his  mind  with  life  and  vividness  some- 
thing ;  but  delicacy,  in  order  to  carry  just  the 
right  thing,  to  make  the  outlines  of  thought  sharp, 
to  render  with  fidelity  the  varying  and  subtle 
shades  of  emotion.  A  style  may  have  one  of  these 
virtues  without  the  other.  Macaulay's  work,  for 
example,  has  energy,  but  it  has  no  delicacy.  There 
is  no  precision  either  of  judgment  or  sentiment. 
You  get  an  idea,  but  you  never  are  sure  that  you 
are  getting  just  the  right  idea.  And  similarly,  his 
emotional  values  are  never  nice  or  subtle.  Every- 
thing is  very  good  or  very  bad.  The  colors  are 
laid  on  in  bold,  contrasting  splashes.  Of  the  op- 
posite defect  —  that  is,  a  style  having  delicacy  but 
lacking  energy  —  it  is  not  so  easy  to  find  a  famil- 
iar example,  because  writing  that  lacks  energy  is 
not  likely  to  become  popular.  Perhaps  no  better 
instance  could  be  found  among  recent  English 
writers  than  Walter  Pater.  His  style  is  precise, 
delicate,  finely  shaded ;  he  is  extremely  careful 
and  skillful  to  indicate  those  subtle  gradations 
of  feeling  by  which  one  mood  passes  into  another ; 
but  the  whole  impression  is  faint.  He  does  not 
stir    us    enough ;  we  find   it  difficult   to  command 


THE   FORMAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     195 

sufficient  attention  to  appreciate  all  his  delicate 
effects. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  Is  not  the  style  of  either 
of  these  men,  by  the  definition  given  above,  an 
example  of  almost  perfect  form  ?  That  is,  does 
it  not  fit  the  thought  or  emotion  of  the  writer 
exactly  ?  Is  not  the  deficiency  rather  in  Macau- 
lay's  mind  than  in  his  style  ?  If  he  expressed 
no  nice  shades  of  feeling,  no  precise  distinctions 
of  meaning,  it  was  because  he  had  none  to  express. 
He  wrote  in  broad,  contrasted,  rough-and-ready 
terms  because  he  thought  that  way;  he  had  no 
flexibility  of  mind,  no  delicately  shaded  tones  of 
feeling.  His  style,  it  may  be  urged,  photographs 
his  mind  precisely;  and  therefore,  according  to 
the  definition  given,  ought  to  be  accounted  a  per- 
fect style. 

Well,  if  that  be  so,  if  the  style  do  reproduce  ex- 
actly the  mind  of  the  man,  then  we  must  certainly 
admit  that  it  is  an  excellent  style ;  the  fault  is  in 
the  thought  of  the  writer,  and  not  in  its  expression. 
And  this  is  doubtless  true,  to  a  great  degree,  in 
Macaulay's  case.  The  faults  to  be  urged  against 
his  writing  are  not  primarily  faults  of  style,  in 
any  exact  sense  of  the  word;  they  are  faults  of 
mind.  Which  only  shows  the  difficulty,  already 
mentioned,  of  considering  style  apart  from  sub- 
stance. This,  however,  should  be  said:  there  are 
certain  bad  habits  of  thinking  that  tend  directly 
to  vitiate  style,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  are  now 


196    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

using  the  word.  For  instance,  if  a  man  be  not 
careful  to  think  precisely,  he  will  not  be  careful 
to  express  himself  precisely ;  his  speech  inevitably 
then  soon  ceases  to  be  a  precise  representation  of 
his  own  thought,  —  and  that  is  a  fault  of  style. 
Extravagance  in  thinking,  reckless  emotional  esti- 
mates, a  readiness  to  yield  to  prejudice,  a  tendency 
to  class  things  rapidly  and  inaccurately,  and  then 
to  feel  admiration  or  aversion  for  them  as  so 
classed,  —  these  are  mental  habits  that  surely  pro- 
duce the  corresponding  vices  of  extravagance,  ra- 
pidity, carelessness  of  statement.  So  that  while  a 
man's  general  mode  of  expression  may  very  well 
indicate  his  general  habit  of  thought,  his  particu- 
lar statements  may  be  very  far  from  representing 
with  any  nicety  his  own  opinions  or  feelings.  We 
never  know  exactly  how  much  he  means  himself 
by  what  he  says.  This  is,  in  the  strictest  sense, 
a  fault  of  style ;  and  this  fault  may,  in  fact,  be 
often  urged  against  Macaulay's  writing. 

Or,  it  may  be  objected  again,  that  by  this  defini- 
tion of  form,  we  may  have  very  insignificant  writ- 
ing with  very  excellent  style.  A  man's  thinking 
may  be  feeble  or  meagre,  sadly  lacking  in  original- 
ity and  power,  or  a  man's  temper  may  be  coarse, 
vulgar,  brutal;  while  yet  if  he  be  able  to  render 
that  thought  or  temper  with  exactness,  his  style 
will  be  perfect,  though  what  he  writes  may  be 
hardly  worth  reading.  Well,  something  very  like 
that  will  sometimes  be  the  case.     There  are  some 


THE   FORMAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     197 

minor  poets  who  seem  to  be  able  to  say  almost  per- 
fectly what  they  have  to  say  ;  but  they  have  noth- 
ing to  say.  Their  style  is  well  enough ;  they  have 
nothing  to  utter.  Occasionally  a  writer  may  even 
gain  deserved  eminence  chiefly  by  the  excellence  of 
his  style.  Joseph  Addison  was  regarded  for  nearly 
a  century  as  our  first  master  of  English  prose.  And 
not  unjustly.  Few  writers  ever  have  been  able  to 
render  themselves  with  greater  nicety.  His  style 
is  flexible,  graceful,  urbane ;  it  is  Mr.  Addison  in 
speech.  As  we  read  it  we  see  the  very  man  as  he 
was.  As  far  as  style  goes,  our  grandfathers  were 
right  in  their  praise.  But  Addison  never  added 
much  to  the  stock  of  human  thought,  never  stirs  our 
feelings  very  deeply.  We  see  that  there  is  not 
much  in  the  man  after  all  —  no  profound  or  origi- 
nal ideas,  no  deep  passions.  Or,  for  another  ex- 
ample, consider  Addison's  contemporary,  Swift. 
Here  is  a  temper  cynical,  bitter,  often  almost  re- 
volting; yet  here  again  is  a  most  astonishing 
power  in  the  man  to  utter  himself,  and  so  a  style 
which,  with  world-wide  differences  from  Addison's, 
is  equally  admirable.  It  is  a  naked,  brawny,  almost 
brutally  frank  English ;  but  it  is  Jonathan  Swift 
speaking  right  on.  The  ultimate  rank  of  Swift's 
writings  must  be  measured  principally  by  the  per- 
manent value  of  his  truth  and  the  permanent  power 
of  his  emotion;  but  his  style  could  hardly  be 
better.  Yet,  while  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  excel- 
lence of  style  does  not  of  necessity  imply  corre- 


198    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

sponding  value  in  subject-matter,  it  is  always  to  be 
remembered  that  energetic  and  accurate  expression 
does  always  necessitate  a  certain  vigor  and  dis- 
crimination of  mind.  No  man  can  be  a  great 
master  of  exact  expression  without  force  and  exact- 
itude in  his  thinking.  To  this  extent  it  is  true 
that  excellence  of  style  does  imply  excellence  of 
subject-matter. 

For  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  literary  expres- 
sion is  never  strictly  spontaneous  or  unconscious. 
Literature  is  an  art;  and  literary  form,  a  careful 
and  calculated  effect.  Even  the  poet,  whatever  he 
may  say,  does  not  sing  as  the  bird  sings,  pouring 

forth  his  soul  — 

"  In  profuse  strains 
Of  unpremeditated  art." 

On  the  contrary,  he  is  writing  for  a  reader ;  he  is 
striving  not  merely  to  utter  but  to  convey  thought 
and  feeling.  He  must,  therefore,  not  only  think 
what  he  is  saying,  but  he  must  consider  how  the 
phrase  in  which  he  says  it  is  likely  to  impress  his 
reader ;  he  must  analyze  his  own  feeling  before  he 
utters  it;  he  must  choose  among  the  materials  of 
expression,  selecting  this  word  or  image,  rejecting 
that.  All  this  is  a  deliberate  and  calculated  process. 
Doubtless  in  moments  of  happy  inspiration  single 
thoughts  may  come  to  birth  full  clad  in  fittest 
phrase ;  but  no  continuous  efficient  writing  is  pos- 
sible without  careful,  well-directed  effort.  No  man 
can  make  literature  out  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     199 

simply  by  opening  his  mouth  and  uttering  them 
without  forethought  or  arrangement.  It  is  true,  we 
sometimes  praise  a  writer  for  what  we  call  the 
"  ease  "  of  his  style ;  we  usually  have  in  mind,  in 
such  a  case,  the  ease  with  which  we  get  his  mean- 
ing. But  even  when  we  do  mean  the  apparent 
ease  or  lightness  of  effort  with  which  the  writer 
seems  to  attain  efficient  expression,  this  very  praise 
implies  that  expression  is  a  matter  of  effort  and  dif- 
ficulty. We  never  admire  the  ease  with  which  an 
easy  thing  is  done ;  we  reserve  our  praise  for  the 
ready  and  instant  mastery  of  difficulties.  Doubt- 
less in  such  cases  the  ease  is  usually  only  apparent, 
the  result  of  long  toil  and  tireless  practice ;  "  Easy 
writing,"  said  Fox,  bluntly,  "  makes  d — d  hard  read- 
ing." Yet  ease  is  a  legitimate  object  of  admira- 
tion, though  not  the  highest  object,  whenever  a  man, 
either  from  natural  aptitude  or  from  long  training, 
or  as  is  usually  the  case  from  both,  does  with  evi- 
dent facility  what  most  men  can  do  only  with  toil 
and  slowness  or  cannot  do  at  all. 

Similarly  we  often  admire  what  we  call  natural- 
ness or  spontaneity.  In  much  of  the  poetry  of 
Burns,  for  example,  there  seems  to  be  no  careful 
art,  no  poetic  inversions,  no  sense  of  the  burden- 
someness  of  metre :  the  simple  diction  and  struc- 
ture of  prose  glide  unaware  into  the  most  melodious 
verse : — 

"  Ye  banks  and  braes  o'  Bonnie  Doon, 
How  can  ye  bloom  sae  fresh  and  fair  I 


200    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

How  can  ye  sing,  ye  little  birds, 
And  I  sae  weary,  full  o'  care  !  " 

Or  again,  and  in  very  different  mood  :  — 

"  Some  books  are  lies  frae  end  to  end, 
And  some  great  lies  were  never  penn'd : 
Ev'n  ministers  they  hae  been  kenn'd, 

In  holy  rapture, 
A  rousing  whid,  at  times,  to  vend, 

And  nail 't  wi'  Scripture. 

"  But  this  that  I  am  gaun  to  tell, 
Which  lately  on  a  night  befell, 
Is  just  as  true's  the  Deil's  in  hell 

Or  Dublin  city  : 
That  e'er  he  nearer  comes  oursel 

's  a  muckle  pity." 

But  in  such  cases  what  we  admire  is  really  not  the 
lack  of  art,  but  the  way  in  which  art  uses  the 
homely  and  familiar.  This,  we  say,  is  our  common 
speech ;  we  almost  think  —  till  we  try  it  —  that  we 
could  write  so  ourselves.  Such  utter  simplicity 
seems,  moreover,  and  usually  is,  a  guarantee  of 
truth  and  sincerity.  Yet  no  virtue  of  style  is 
more  difficult  of  attainment.  To  produce  the  high- 
est effects  of  beauty,  or  humor,  or  pathos  with 
such  homely  parsimony  of  phrase ;  to  be  simple 
but  not  coarse,  familiar  but  not  vapid,  austere  but 
not  meagre  —  this  is  a  proof  either  of  rare  genius 
or  of  nicest  art. 

But  although  literary  form  must  always  be  the 


THE  FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     201 

result  of  deliberate  and  purposed  effort,  this  effort 
will  be  prompted  by  the  single  desire,  on  the  part 
of  the  writer,  to  express  his  own  thought  and  feel- 
ing just  as  they  are.  Sincerity  is  the  first  essen- 
tial of  good  writing.  Both  the  cardinal  virtues  of 
style,  energy  and  delicacy,  depend  directly  upon  it. 
The  energy  of  a  man's  writing  will  be  determined 
mainly  by  the  genuineness  of  his  own  feelings;  its 
delicacy  and  precision  by  the  genuineness  of  his 
desire  to  represent  those  feelings  exactly  as  they 
are.  For  he  is  constantly  tempted  to  represent 
them  as  a  little  different  from  what  they  really 
are;  to  make  them  seem  what  perhaps  he  thinks 
they  ought  to  be ;  to  exaggerate  or  furbish  or  em- 
bellish them.  But  the  conscientious  literary  artist 
is  afraid  of  all  that.  He  really  wishes  to  express 
himself,  the  truth  as  he  sees  it,  the  impression  it 
does  actually  work  upon  his  emotions.  He  knows 
that  this  is  the  only  way  of  securing  any  fresh 
effects  of  originality  or  power.  If  there  be  no 
beauty  or  force  in  his  thought,  he  knows  that  he 
cannot  convey  any  to  his  readers  by  mere  external 
rhetoric  or  fine  writing.  To  simulate  a  feeling,  to 
try  to  be  eloquent  or  pathetic  at  second-hand,  this 
never  issues  in  real  pathos  or  eloquence.  The 
resulting  literary  form  is  sure  to  seem  padded  or 
hollow,  and  not  to  adapt  itself  naturally  to  the 
varying  lines  of  any  living  thought  underneath  it. 
This  rule  of  sincerity  does  not  debar  a  man  from 
ransacking  every  power  of  language  and  putting 


202     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

into  requisition  his  utmost  mastery  of  speech  in 
the  endeavor  to  attain  just  and  adequate  utter- 
ance; but  his  motive  in  every  case  will  be  to 
express  himself,  to  transfer  his  own  mental  state, 
as  nearly  as  possible  intact,  to  the  mind  of  the 
reader. 

Sincerity  alone  is  not  enough,  it  may  be  ad- 
mitted, to  insure  a  good  style.  A  man  may  desire 
to  express  himself  justly,  and  yet  not  be  able  to. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  denied  that  writing,  lacking  this 
principle  of  sincerity,  may  often  be  popular  and 
immediately  effective.  Hollow  rhetoric  and  decla- 
mation are  sometimes  very  telling  for  a  while. 
The  demagogue  gets  his  way  and  has  his  day.  But 
the  demagogue  does  not  make  literature.  Sound 
and  permanent  literary  excellence  is  impossible 
without  artistic  honesty. 

Thus  far  we  have  used  the  word  form  in  its 
widest  sense  as  covering  all  matters  of  expression. 
But  the  term  is  sometimes  employed  with  a  nar- 
rower and  quite  different  meaning,  which  implies  a 
convenient  distinction.  For  in  criticising  literary 
workmanship  we  often  distinguish  between  form 
and  manner,  meaning  now  by  form  the  conception 
of  the  work  as  a  whole,  its  plot  or  plan,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  treatment  or  handling ;  the  whole 
as  contrasted  with  the  details  of  language,  rhythm, 
melody.  As  a  piece  of  expression  the  work  is  to 
be  judged,  both  in  its  form  as  a  whole  and  in  its  de- 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     203 

tails  of  treatment,  by  the  energy  and  the  precision 
with  which  it  renders  the  thought  and  emotion  of 
its  author;  yet  in  critical  discussion  it  is  often 
convenient  to  consider  form  and  treatment  sepa- 
rately. 

Of  form  in  this  narrower  sense,  the  one  essential 
virtue,  which  embraces  all  others,  is  Unity.  There 
can  hardly  be  any  work  of  art  without  that.  It  is 
a  demand  that  applies,  with  substantially  the  same 
meaning,  to  all  varieties  of  literature.  If  the  work 
be  rigidly  intellectual  in  character,  it  must  lead  to 
only  one  conclusion ;  if  it  be  narrative  or  epic,  it 
must  tell  but  one  story,  and  subordinate  all  minor 
currents  of  incident  to  that ;  if  it  be  the  expression 
of  emotion,  as  the  pure  lyric,  one  emotion  must  be 
dominant,  and  all  imagery  and  melody  made  to 
serve  that ;  and  even  if  the  work  be  more  complex, 
showing  the  action  and  reaction  of  a  large  group  of 
persons  upon  each  other  in  great  variety  of  circum- 
stance, as  in  the  higher  drama,  still  the  attention 
must  be  centred  upon  one  group  of  persons  as  a 
group,  there  must  be  only  one  main  course  of  ac- 
tion, and,  above  all,  some  one  tone  of  feeling  must 
be  dominant  throughout.  In  writing  addressed 
primarily  to  the  intellect  and  in  the  simpler  forms 
of  poetry,  like  the  lyric,  the  demands  of  unity  are 
more  easily  stated  and  more  easily  met.  But  in 
the  higher  forms  of  composition,  in  which  a  great 
variety  of  interests  are  to  be  combined,  and  in 
which  the  emotional  element  is  rich  and  complex, 


204     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

the  unity  of  the  work,  though  it  may  be  felt,  is  not 
so  easily  defined  or  described.  For  it  is  a  unity 
of  feeling,  and  it  is  consistent  with  an  immense 
variety  of  persons  and  motives.  But  as  there  may 
be  just  as  truly  a  unity  of  impression  from  the 
multitudinous  richness  of  organ  or  orchestral  music 
as  from  the  single  clear  note  of  a  flute,  so  we  may 
just  as  truly  get  unity  of  impression  from  a  rich, 
subtly  complex  work  of  art  as  from  a  simple  ballad. 
One  characteristic  of  literature  as  distinguished 
from  all  other  arts,  is  that  it  is  able  to  represent  the 
breadth  and  complexity  of  life  as  no  other  art  can ; 
yet  in  the  most  perfect  examples  of  literary  form, 
however  complex  the  emotion  and  however  vari- 
ous the  action,  there  is  always  a  certain  unity  of 
emotional  effect.  Take  a  great  play  of  Shak- 
spere,  for  example.  Mechanical  unity  of  form, 
such  as  the  traditional  laws  for  unity  of  time  and 
place  demand,  there  is  none ;  there  are  sometimes 
two  or  three  concurrent,  though  not  coordinate, 
schemes  of  action;  there  is  wonderful  variety  of 
character  and  incident;  broad  comic  effects  are 
sometimes  set  side  by  side  with  sternest  tragedy ; 
yet  there  is  always  unity  of  emotional  impression. 
The  play  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  has  already  been 
referred  to,  in  a  previous  chapter,  as  illustrating 
this.  How  distinct  the  dominant  emotional  effect 
of  youth  and  passion!  How  impossible  not  to 
feel  it,  whether  we  can  explain  it  or  not!  The 
language,  the  atmosphere,  the  time  of  the  deter- 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     205 

mining  scenes,  —  still,  heavy,  tranced  midsummer 
night,  when  the  earth  seems  instinct  with  passion, 
and  heavy,  thunder-laden  clouds  swim  silently  into 
the  sky,  —  all  is  subdued  and  blended  into  that 
tone  of  passionate  intensity  which  pervades  the 
play.  A  similar  unity  of  feeling  every  one  must 
recognize  in  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  or  As 
You  Like  It,  or  TJie  Tempest,  or  King  Lear. 
The  same  thing  is  seen  in  poetry  of  smaller 
compass  and  less  variety,  if  it  be  conceived  in 
a  thoroughly  artistic  temper.  Keats's  Eve  of 
St.  Agnes  will  afford  an  excellent  example  of  this 
power  to  combine  luxuriance  of  detail  so  as  to 
produce  unity  of  impression.  The  chill  and  hush 
without  contrasted  with  the  warmth  and  light 
of  "  argent  revelry  "  within ;  the  music  "  yearning 
like  a  god  in  pain";  the  dim-lighted  chamber, 
"silken,  hushed,  and  chaste,"  where  the  moon- 
beams are  touched  to  rosier  hues  of  passion  as 
they  fall  through  the  rich  emblazoned  window 
upon  the  breast  of  Madeline,  kneeling  for  prayer 
before  she  sleeps  —  every  one  of  the  marvellously 
beautiful  details  heightens  the  feeling  of  half-mel- 
ancholy wonder  and  romance  which  the  poem  is  in- 
tended to  produce.  On  the  other  hand,  a  lack  of 
this  unity  of  emotional  effect  will  sometimes  mar 
an  otherwise  most  exquisite  poem.  A  careful  criti- 
cism must  pronounce  Tennyson's  Princess  open 
to  this  charge.  The  different  motives  in  the  poem 
are  not  harmonized  into  any  unity  of  total  effect. 


206    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

The  pretty  extravaganza  which  forms  its  central 
story  makes  no  clear  impression  upon  us.  It  is 
too  strange  to  admit  our  belief;  it  is  not  strange 
enough  to  enthrall  our  wonder.  It  ought  to  be 
either  more  romantic  or  less  so.  The  songs  which 
fill  the  pauses  of  the  story  and  many  of  the  longer 
passages,  if  taken  separately,  are  exquisitely  beau- 
tiful or  pathetic ;  but  their  effect  as  they  stand  in 
the  poem  is  much  diminished  by  the  setting  of 
purely  fanciful  or  half-playful  circumstance  in 
which  they  are  placed  and  by  the  obvious  un- 
reality of  all  the  action.  In  a  word,  the  whole 
is,  as  Tennyson  called  it,  a  Medley.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  most  charming  poetry  in  The  Prin- 
cess;  but  The  Princess  is  not  a  great  poem. 

Now  this  power  to  subdue  and  harmonize  seem- 
ing differences  and  even  discords,  to  show  variety 
of  action  conducing  to  some  definite  result,  and 
variety  of  passion  blending  in  some  total  impres- 
sion, is  always  characteristic  of  the  highest  and 
most  difficult  examples  of  literary  form.  It  im- 
plies in  the  writer  great  powers  of  intellect, 
imagination,  and  sympathy.  He  must  imagine 
simultaneously  a  large  group  of  different  persons 
and  of  conflicting  interests ;  he  must  grasp  clearly 
their  mutual  relations,  see  which  are  dominant  and 
how  they  govern  the  rest ;  realize  justly  the  whole 
complex  condition,  and  then  be  able  to  render  his 
own  sense  of  it  with  vigor  and  precision.  Indeed, 
in  any  art,  this  power  to  harmonize  diverse  quali- 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     207 

ties  in  a  total  unity  of  effect,  is  proof  of  highest 
mastery.  The  noblest  achievement  of  the  art  of 
architecture,  for  example,  is  a  great  Gothic  cathe- 
dral. Its  general  conception,  though  vast,  is  dis- 
tinct; the  impression  of  massive  and  solemn 
grandeur  it  makes  upon  the  emotions  is  unmis- 
takable. Yet  when  we  scan  its  details  we  find 
along  with  the  stately  dignity  of  solid  pillar  and 
soaring  arch,  not  only  all  luxuriant  and  fantastic 
beauties  of  carving  and  tracery,  but  ugly  and 
grinning  shapes  in  its  gargoyles  and  among  the 
leafage  of  its  capitals,  and  scattered  throughout 
all  varieties  of  wild  and  apparently  lawless  forms ; 
yet  all  subdued  into  reverence  and  hallowed  into 
religion.  And  so  a  great  play  of  Shakspere, 
or  a  really  great  novel,  however  varied  its  char- 
acters, and  however  diverse  its  incidents,  always 
leaves  upon  us  a  distinct  total  impression,  a  real 
unity  of  feeling. 

All  virtues  that  pertain  to  the  form  or  plan  of 
a  work  of  art  are  really  included  in  this  require- 
ment of  Unity.  For  Unity  implies  completeness, 
method,  harmony.  Completeness  demands  that 
the  form  should  lack  nothing  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  shall  admit  nothing  irrelevant  or  additional. 
The  work  must  neither  be  unfinished  nor  burdened 
with  needless  or  supplementary  matter.  It  may 
comprise  an  immense  variety  of  detail,  like  a 
drama,  or  it  may  work  its  effect  by  a  single  inci- 
dent  and   simple   emotion ;    but  in  either  case  it 


208    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

must  contain  just  enough  and  not  too  much.1  The 
nicer  varieties  of  literary  art,  especially  the  briefer 
ones,  such  as  lyric,  ballad,  satiric  portrait,  often 
owe  much  of  their  charm  to  this  masterly  conden- 
sation ;  they  paint  a  picture  in  a  few  bold  strokes, 
send  an  emotion  home  to  the  heart  by  a  dozen 
lines.  These  kinds  of  work  especially  demand 
clearness  and  delicacy  of  outline ;  they  are  blurred 
or  mutilated  by  additions  and  interpolations. 

By  method  is  meant  composition,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  that  word  —  the  putting  together  the  parts 
of  a  work  in  right  order  and  proportion.     Some- 

1  Keats's  beautiful  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  referred  to  on  a  previous 
page,  should  have  ended  with  the  first  two  lines  of  the  last 
stanza :  — 

"  And  they  are  gone ;  ay,  ages  long  ago 
These  lovers  fled  away  into  the  storm." 

The  rather  grisly  details  in  the  remaining  lines  of  the  stanza 
only  becloud  the  fair,  lovely  picture  with  which  the  poem  should 
close :  — 

"  That  night  the  Baron  dreamt  of  many  a  woe, 
And  all  his  warrior  guests,  with  shade  and  form 
Of  witch  and  demon,  aud  large  coffin  worm 
Were  long  be-nightmar'd.     Angela  the  old 
Died  palsy-twitch'd,  with  meagre  face  deform : 
The  Beadsman,  after  thousand  aves  told, 
For  aye  unsought  for,  slept  among  his  ashes  cold." 

Not  infrequent  instances  of  the  violation  of  this  law  of  com- 
pleteness may  be  found  in  the  poetry  of  Browning,  who  was 
somewhat  deficient  in  the  sense  of  form.  To  mention  but  a 
single  case,  the  Serenade  at  the  Villa  would  have  been  complete 
had  it  closed  with  the  fifth  stanza ;  Browning  added  seven  more 
stanzas  very  characteristic  of  his  feeling,  but  quite  fatal  to  the 
artistic  unity  of  his  lyric. 


THE  FORMAL  ELEMENT  IN  LITERATURE     209 

times  that  order  will  be  a  logical  order,  sometimes 
an  emotional;  but  order  there  must  always  be. 
And  order,  in  turn,  implies  climax.  Climax,  how- 
ever, does  not  always  demand  that  the  emotional 
effect  should  grow  steadily  more  intense  quite  to 
the  end,  the  work  closing  in  a  grand  final  crescendo. 
On  the  contrary,  in  most  works  of  art  of  any 
marked  power,  if  at  all  extended,  the  point  of 
greatest  intensity  is  reached  sometime  before  the 
end,  and  the  emotion  gradually  falls  through- 
out the  closing  passages.  The  exhibition  of  a 
complete  action,  with  its  causes  and  its  conse- 
quences, usually  makes  this  necessary,  since  the 
emotional  interest  naturally  culminates  at  the 
point  of  crisis  in  the  action.  Moreover,  such  a 
curve  of  emotion,  —  if  the  phrase  may  be  used,  — 
closing  near  the  normal  level  of  feeling,  seems  to 
be  more  pleasing  than  an  abrupt  termination  at 
the  point  of  highest  emotion.  Shakspere's  great 
tragedies,  for  example,  are  always  rounded  to  a 
close  in  some  mood  of  resignation  or  acquiescence : 
a  mood  which  can  be  prolonged  in  thought,  and  in 
which  the  stormier  passions  of  the  play  are  slowly 
hushed  in  reverent  calm. 

By  harmony  is  meant  something  more  than  rele- 
vancy. Harmony  excludes  not  only  everything  ir- 
relevant but  many  things  that  may  be  relevant 
to  the  action  or  argument,  but  that  tend  to  pro- 
duce discords  of  feeling  or  to  dull  the  emotional 
effect   of    the   work.     For    this    reason    art    may 


210    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

often  diverge  from  the  facts  of  nature  or  his- 
tory. Thus  Shakspere  violates  the  truth  of  history 
slightly  to  make  Hotspur  young  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  and  alters  or  omits  some  important  details 
of  the  historical  record  simply  because  they  do 
not  seem  in  harmony  with  the  type  of  character 
he  wishes  to  exhibit  in  Hotspur.  On  the  other 
hand,  harmony  admits,  and  indeed  invites,  a  great 
diversity  of  emotional  effects  if  only  they  can  be 
subdued  to  minister  to  the  total  impression.  Har- 
mony also  implies  an  adaptation  both  of  general 
form  and  of  rhythmical  and  musical  effects  to  the 
sentiment  to  be  conveyed.  Some  emotions  can  be 
well  conveyed  in  a  sonnet  or  short  lyric  that  would 
be  diluted  and  enfeebled  if  spread  over  a  poem  of 
five  pages ;  some  emotions  can  be  well  expressed 
in  a  varied  and  fluent  metre  that  could  hardly  be 
put  into  a  formal  and  rigid  one.  A  love-song  in 
the  rhyming  ten  syllable  couplet  of  Pope  would 
be  as  absurd  as  a  love-letter  on  the  typewriter. 
The  end  aimed  at  by  all  these  requirements  of 
harmony,  method,  completeness,  is  the  same  — 
unity  of  form. 

In  contrast  with  Form  in  the  narrow  meaning 
of  general  plan  or  outline,  the  word  Style  is  often 
employed  in  a  specific  sense  to  signify  detailed 
treatment,  handling,  or  manner.  Here  again  we 
shall  find  that  all  excellences  of  style,  in  this 
narrow  sense,   are  to  be    measured    by  the  stand- 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     211 

ards  already  mentioned  —  energy  and  delicacy. 
Does  the  writer  at  every  point  so  use  his  instru- 
ment of  language  as  to  convey  his  own  thought 
and  feeling  forcibly  and  precisely  ?  That  is  the 
test  to  which  all  style  must  be  brought.  And  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  more  detailed  or  specific 
tests  than  this  can  be  given.  The  range  of  thought 
and  emotion  is  so  immense,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
language  is  so  complex  an  instrument,  of  such 
infinite  possibilities,  that  it  seems  hopeless  to  lay 
down  detailed  rules  for  its  use.  If  we  attempt 
to  enunciate  principles  of  treatment  or  prescribe 
definite  methods  by  which  a  given  effect  may  be 
produced,  we  shall  presently  find  that  some  one 
has  produced  that  effect  by  a  quite  different  method 
in  defiance  of  all  our  principles.  If  a  man  shall 
convey  his  thought  to  me  clearly,  and  shall,  more- 
over, make  me  share  his  feeling  in  its  full  force 
and  with  all  its  delicate  shadings,  then  I  ask  no 
more  of  his  style.  I  will  not  attempt  to  decide 
hoiv  he  shall  do  that,  nor  insist  that  he  do  it  as 
some  one  else  whom  I  have  been  accustomed  to 
call  a  classic  has  done  it.  No  matter  for  that; 
enough  that  he  has  done  it. 

Of  course  there  are  some  general  rules  taken 
for  granted  in  the  character  of  language  —  such 
as  the  laws  of  grammatical  accuracy  and  a  few 
still  more  general  laws  of  rhetorical  usage  —  which 
all  good  writers  observe ;  but  the  observance  of 
them  is  only  a  negative  merit,  and  explains  noth- 


212    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

ing  of  literary  power.  It  is  not  without  impor- 
tance, however,  to  notice  that  a  good  writer  always 
has  an  acute  sense  of  the  precise  meaning  and 
value  of  individual  words.  He  knows  how  diffi- 
cult, how  almost  impossible,  is  really  accurate 
expression,  and  how  much  depends  upon  delicate 
sensitiveness  and  minute  care  in  the  use  of  words. 
Merely  to  secure  clearness,  while  meeting  the  other 
demands  of  literary  expression,  is,  he  finds,  by  no 
means  easy.  In  point  of  fact,  very  few  writers 
succeed  in  attaining  perfect  clearness  unless  both 
matter  and  form  are  of  the  simplest.  The  require- 
ments of  metre  and  rhyme,  for  instance,  often 
lead  even  great  poets  into  obscurity.  Instances 
of  absolute  opacity  of  meaning  arising  from  this 
cause  are  often  to  be  found  in  the  midst  of  very 
beautiful  passages.  One  of  those  first  five  stanzas 
of  Browning's  Serenade  at  the  Villa,  referred  to 
in  a  previous  paragraph,  which  taken  by  them- 
selves make  so  beautiful  a  lyric,  runs  thus :  — 

"  Earth  turned  in  her  sleep  with  pain, 

Sultrily  suspired  for  proof : 
In  at  heaven  and  out  again, 

Lightning  !  —  where  it  broke  the  roof, 
Bloodlike,  some  few  drops  of  rain." 

It  is  a  most  vivid  bit  of  description ;  but  what 
does  the  second  line  mean  ?  It  seems  certain  that 
the  phrase  "for  proof"  would  never  have  been 
written  if  Browning  had  not  already  framed  the 
next  two  lines  and  looked  impatiently  for  a  rhyme 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     213 

to  "  roof."  Another  example  of  the  same  sort  may 
be  cited  from  the  charming  poem  Be  Gustibus, 
which  stands  near  this  in  the  same  volume.  This 
is  the  opening  stanza :  — 

"  Your  ghost  will  walk,  you  lover  of  trees, 
(If  our  loves  remain) 

In  an  English  lane, 
By  a  cornfield-side  a-flutter  with  poppies. 
Hark,  those  two  in  the  hazel  coppice  — 
A  boy  and  a  girl,  if  the  good  fates  please, 

Making  love,  say  — 

The  happier  they  ! 
Draw  yourself  up  from  the  light  of  the  moon, 
And  let  them  pass,  as  they  will  too  soon, 

With  the  bean  flowers'  boon, 

And  the  blackbird's  tune, 

And  May,  and  June  !  " 

Beautiful;  with  a  poignant  touch  of  the  pathetic 
briefness  of  all  the  sweetest  things;  but  what  is 
"  the  bean  flowers'  boon  "  ?  Is  it  the  fragrance  of 
the  bean  flowers  ?  or  their  beauty  ?  Or  are  the  bean 
flowers  themselves  the  boon  of  Nature  to  us  ?  It 
rhymes  with  "  moon "  and  "  soon  "  ;  but  what  it 
means,  no  one  can  say.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
the  last  two  lines  of  this  passage  from  perhaps  the 
most  beautiful  and  most  familiar  of  the  descrip- 
tions in  Byron's  Childe  Harold? 

"  Then  seems  a  floating  whisper  on  the  hill, 
But  that  is  fancy,  for  the  starlight  dews 
All  silently  their  tears  of  love  instil, 
Weeping  themselves  away,  till  they  infuse 
Deep  into  nature's  breast  the  spirit  of  her  hues." 


214    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Even  Tennyson,  the  most  careful  and  nicely 
artistic  of  all  modern  English  poets,  will  afford  us 
examples  of  difficulty,  if  not  absolute  obscurity  of 
meaning.  These  lines  from  The  Tivo  Voices  cer- 
tainly are  not  very  transparent,  nor  is  their  mean- 
ing rendered  entirely  clear  by  their  context :  — 

" —  Thou  wilt  answer  but  in  vain. 

"  The  doubt  would  rest  I  dare  not  solve. 
In  the  same  circle  we  revolve. 
Assurance  only  breeds  resolve." 

All  these  instances  and  scores  of  similar  ones  that 
might  be  cited  from  the  works  of  the  greatest  poets 
may  illustrate  the  constant  difficulties  in  the  use  of 
language  —  what  may  be  called  the  mechanical 
difficulties  of  style. 

Clearness,  which  is  violated  in  the  above  ex- 
amples, is  of  course  always  a  virtue,  and  is  implied 
in  the  energy  and  delicacy  we  insist  on  as  requisites 
of  good  style.  But  hardly  any  other  one  of  what 
are  often  called  the  qualities  of  style  can  be 
accounted  a  virtue  absolutely,  that  is,  without 
reference  to  the  purpose  it  is  to  serve  in  a  partic- 
ular case.  We  speak,  for  instance,  of  style  as 
terse,  or  elaborate,  or  florid,  or  imaginative,  or 
graceful,  or  piquant,  or  picturesque,  or  melodious  ; 
but  all  such  qualities  are  severally  virtues  only 
as  they  are  appropriate  to  the  purpose  in  hand,  and 
needed  to  convey  the  writer's  meaning  with  energy 
and  precision.     What  general  qualities  of  style  are 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN  LITERATURE     215 

appropriate  to  any  given  case  will  obviously  depend 
on  two  things:  the  temper  of  the  writer  and  the 
nature  of  his  theme ;  what  thought  and  emotion  is 
to  be  conveyed  and  who  is  to  convey  it.  Of  course 
these  two  conditions  are  more  or  less  connected; 
what  the  thought  or  emotion  is,  will  depend  on 
whose  thought  or  emotion  it  is.  But  for  conven- 
ience' sake  we  may  consider  the  two  separately. 

As  to  the  theme.  If  the  matter  of  writing  were 
always  purely  intellectual,  style  would  be  a  com- 
paratively simple  thing.  Its  only  virtue  would  be 
precision,  and  its  laws  might  be  few  and  rigid. 
The  language  of  algebra  is  an  example  of  this  kind 
of  writing.  But  literature,  by  our  initial  defini- 
tion, never  can  be  addressed  merely  to  the  intellect. 
And  the  moment  we  consider  the  emotions,  the 
problem  becomes  vastly  more  complex.  Because 
language,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is  the  natural 
expression  of  thought,  not  of  emotion;  words  are 
the  signs  of  ideas,  not  of  feelings.  If,  therefore, 
we  are  to  excite  or  convey  feeling  by  language, 
we  must  attend  not  merely  to  the  meaning  of  our 
words  but  to  their  arrangement,  their  melody,  their 
associations,  and  the  thousand  ways  by  which  they 
indirectly  hint  or  suggest  emotion.  Indeed,  we 
shall  find  that  the  mere  literal  meaning  of  a  word 
is  often  but  a  small  part  of  its  value.  For,  as  we 
have  already  noticed,  although  they  have  their 
meaning  proper  in  ideas,  words  have  all  sorts  of 
emotional  associations  bound  up  with  them,   and 


216     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

these  associations  now  become  often  of  more  impor- 
tance than  their  meaning.  It  is  not  enough  that 
we  secure  clearness;  we  must  secure  emotional 
harmony.  And  in  the  endeavor  after  this,  Ave 
shall  often  find  the  associations  of  a  word  —  the 
atmosphere  it  brings  with  it  —  decide  instantly 
whether  it  will  suit  our  purpose.  Whole  classes 
of  words,  very  useful  in  their  place,  are  quite  unfit 
either  for  poetry  or  for  the  higher  levels  of  prose. 
Words  which  are  the  smooth  worn  counters  that 
serve  to  carry  on  the  exchange  of  ordinary  conver- 
sation with  least  use  of  thought;  words  which 
express  the  half-sincere  conventions  and  formalities 
of  society;  words  which  name  the  large,  exact  but 
cold  generalizations  of  the  philosopher,  and  words 
which  are  only  the  hollow,  resonant  generalizations 
of  the  declaimer ;  words  which  are  soiled  by  sordid 
usage  or  even  vulgarized  by  keeping  company  ex- 
clusively with  commerce  or  common-place  —  poetry 
will  have  none  of  them.  A  single  intruder  of  this 
sort  can  vulgarize  a  whole  passage.  The  last  stanza 
of  a  solemn  hymn  runs  thus :  — 

"  In  suffering  be  thy  love  my  peace, 
In  weakness  be  thy  love  my  power  ; 

And  when  the  storms  of  life  shall  cease, 
Jesus  in  that  important  hour, 

In  death  as  life  be  thou  my  guide, 

And  save  me,  who  for  me  hast  died." 

Byron,  who  was  always  liable  to  sudden  slips  into 
prose,  makes  Manfred  say  that  it  was  his  delight 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     217 

"to  plunge 
Into  the  torrent,  and  to  roll  along 
On  the  swift  whirl  of  the  new-breaking  wave 
Of  river-stream,  or  ocean  in  their  flow. 
To  follow  through  the  night  the  moving  moon, 
The  stars  and  their  development ;  or  catch 
The  dazzling  lightnings  till  my  eyes  grew  dim." 

Wordsworth,  who  also  is  especially  liable  to  these 
lapses,  almost  ruins  a  beautiful  poem  by  a  single 
mechanical  word :  — 

"And  now  I  see  with  eye  serene, 
The  very  pulse  of  the  machine." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  master  of  language  un- 
derstands the  keen  emotional  effect  often  produced 
by  a  word  of  altogether  vague  and  undefined  im- 
port, a  word  wearing  a  beautiful  nimbus  of  feeling 
that  almost  obliterates  the  exact  lines  of  its  mean- 
ing. Notice,  for  example,  the  last  word  of  this 
stanza  from  Keats's  Ode  to  a  Nightingale :  — 

"  Thou  wast  not  born  for  death,  immortal  Bird  1 
No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down  : 
The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 
In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown : 
Perhaps  the  self-same  song  that  found  a  path 
Through  the  sad  heart  of  Ruth,  when,  sick  for  home, 
She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  alien  corn : 
The  same  that  oft-times  hath 
Charm'd  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. " 

It  might  be  difficult  to  define   clearly  to  the  in- 
telligence the  meaning  of  "forlorn"  here;  yet  it 


218    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

has  a  subtle  meaning  for  the  emotions.  Many  an 
epithet  may  be  found  in  poetry,  especially  in  such 
luxuriant  poetry  as  that  of  Keats,  which,  without 
defining  itself  before  the  understanding,  seems  to 
fill  the  imagination  with  a  mist  of  beauty,  and  thrill 
the  heart  with  unexplained  emotion.  It  may  be  ad- 
mitted that  this  is  a  perilous  charm,  which  must 
generally  be  reserved  for  the  poet  only.  Yet  there 
are  many  words  quite  fit  for  the  use  of  the  prose- 
writer  which,  from  their  familiar  association  with 
the  deepest  things  of  human  life,  seem  to  bring 
into  dim  half-light  a  great  complex  of  experience, 
and  so  have  power  to  move  a  volume  of  feeling 
without  conveying  any  sharply  defined  ideas.  In 
general  it  may  be  said  that  whenever  the  writer, 
whether  in  poetry  or  prose,  would  convey  not  only 
truth  but  the  atmosphere  of  feeling  that  envelops 
truth,  he  must  studiously  avoid  all  discordant  sug- 
gestion even  of  sound  or  movement,  and  he  must 
avail  himself  of  the  thousand  hints,  insinuations, 
echoes,  memories,  shades  of  half-conscious  feeling, 
that  are  subtly  bound  up  with  language.  First  and 
last,  style  is  a  question  of  phrase ;  Swift's  blunt 
definition,  "Proper  words  in  proper  places,"  sums 
up  all  its  virtues.  But  who  shall  say  what  is  the 
proper  word  or  the  proper  place  ?  A  thousand 
rules  cannot  tell  us ;  and  he  who  knows  is  the  mas- 
ter of  his  instrument,  to  sound  what  stop  upon  it 
he  will. 
The  more  general  character  of  style,  also,  as  con- 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     219 

cise  or  elaborate,  imaginative  or  logical,  must  obvi- 
ously be  determined  chiefly  by  the  theme.     It  is 
self-evident  that  the  more  purely  intellectual  the 
composition,  the  more  concise  should  its  manner  be, 
the  less  imaginative  expansion  will  it  bear.     Writ- 
ing, indeed,  by  our  definition,  is  not  literature  at  all, 
unless  it  has  some  power  to  warm   and   light  its 
truth  by  emotion;   but  in  all  forms  of   literature 
addressed  principally  to  the  understanding,  any  at- 
tempt at  emotional  or  imaginative   elaboration  is 
liable  to  seem   merely  decorative,  and   to   detract 
from  the  intrinsic  force  of  the  truth  to  be  conveyed. 
It  is  a  principle  as  good  in  letters  as  in  architecture 
that  ornament  should  never  be  external  and  detach- 
able, but  rather  structural ;  growing  naturally  out 
of  the  structure,  and  serving,  not  to  conceal,  but  to 
emphasize  the  plan  and  purpose  of  the  whole.     The 
intellect  is  justly  impatient  of  all  attempts  to  em- 
bellish the  outside  of  truth.     In  pure  exposition  an 
argument,  a  metaphor,  an   example,  some   happy 
turn  of  phrase  or  flash  of  imagination,  may  often 
illuminate  a  whole   train  of   thought,  and   so  not 
merely  adorn  but  illustrate ;  but  whatever  cannot 
justify  itself  by  such  unmistakable  aid  to  our  ap- 
prehension were  better  away.     The  most  unendura- 
ble of  all  prose  writing  is  that  which,  like  some  of 
Mr.  Swinburne's,  clogs  and  obscures  exposition  with 
inapt  emotional  devices,  until  the  reader,  wearied 
and   befogged   by   extraneous   metaphor,    artificial 
structure,  labored   antithesis  and  alliteration,  de- 


220     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

spairs  of  finding  the  truth  presumably  hidden  in 
such  a  thicket  of  phrase.  But  when  the  principal 
object  of  the  writer  is  to  excite  the  emotions,  he 
may  properly  employ  all  methods  and  devices  that 
will  have  that  effect.  The  poet,  the  novelist,  often 
the  essayist,  may  delay  in  order  to  set  his  subject 
in  various  lights,  call  in  about  it  whatever  of  beau- 
tiful imagery  may  serve  to  make  us  feel  its  charm 
and  power.  It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that  nei- 
ther the  most  sublime  nor  the  most  intense  emotion 
will  endure  expansion  or  elaboration  of  phrase. 
Some  conceptions  are  themselves  more  august  than 
any  images  by  which  we  could  try  to  exalt  them, 
and  will  bear  statement  only  in  the  simplest  words. 
"  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth "  —  the  rhetorician  may  not  amplify  that ! 
Similarly,  intense  emotion,  which  is  always  of  the 
nature  of  pathos,  will  not  permit  any  detail  in 
utterance.  That  keenest  joy  and  that  deepest  grief 
which  both  alike  may  move  to  tears,  are  never  vol- 
uble. A  heart  may  break  in  half  a  line.  The  re- 
sponses of  Ophelia,  — 

"  I  was  the  more  deceived,"  — 

the  speech  of  Cordelia  in  Lear,  the  defence  of 
Hermione  in  the  Winter's  Tale,  are  familiar  ex- 
amples of  the  reticence  of  intense  emotion.  Such 
emotion,  moreover,  must  express  itself  with  that 
absolute  plainness  which  is  the  note  of  sincerity. 
Overmastering  passion  of  any  kind  may  not  take 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     221 

thought  to  order  its  phrase.  The  profoundest 
emotion,  therefore,  often  utters  itself  in  the  home- 
liest speech.  Wordsworth's  Michael,  for  example, 
one  of  the  most  pathetic  poems  in  our  litera- 
ture, is  written  in  a  style  of  the  most  absolute 
simplicity,  in  which  every  word  seems  informed 
with  intense  but  restrained  emotion.  But  feeling 
that  is  less  poignant,  especially  if  it  be  in  any  way 
reflective,  may  well  be  lingering  and  diffuse  in 
expression.  The  anticipation  of  joy,  the  brooding 
recollection  of  grief,  the  fond  regard  of  affection  — 
all  such  emotion  as  this  loves  to  dwell  upon  its 
object ;  it  is  prolonged  and  heightened  by  calling 
in  about  that  object  all  congenial  associations  and 
imagery.  As  we  have  seen,  our  sense  at  once  of 
the  power  and  the  charm  of  a  truth  is  often 
increased  by  the  aid  of  the  imagination.  Human 
life  is  short  —  it  is  an  undoubted  truth,  but  it  has 
little  power  over  our  ordinary  moods  until  it  is 
fitted  by  the  imagination  with  some  analogy. 
Saith  the  Scripture :  "  For  what  is  your  life  ?  It 
is  even  as  a  vapor  which  vanisheth  away."  And 
the  pathos  of  the  truth  may  be  heightened  still 
further  by  carrying  the  image  into  vivid  detail. 
Tennyson,  taking  this  image,  realizes  all  its  im- 
aginative circumstance  ;  moreover,  he  adds  to  the 
pathos  of  the  picture  by  placing  the  vapor  above 
the  grave  of  the  man,  thus  suggesting  some 
momentary  thought  of  the  contrast  between  the 
restless  cloud  in  the  free  air  above,  and  the  dull 


222    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

repose  of  the  imprisoned  clay  below  ;  and  he  gives 
to  the  whole  that  last,  most  poignant  effect  of 
music,  by  the  sliding  liquids  of  the  second  stanza 
that  suggest  dimness,  remoteness,  soft-lapsing 
change : — 

"  He  will  not  hear  the  north  wind,  rave, 
Nor,  moaning,  household  shelter  crave, 
From  winter  rains  that  beat  his  grave. 

"  High  up  the  vapors  fold  and  swim, 
About  him  broods  the  twilight  dim, 
The  place  he  knew  forgetteth  him." 

Nearly  all  Tennyson's  poetry  is  written  in  this 
mood  of  reflective  feeling,  which  invites  imagina- 
tive elaboration.  Consequently  he  has  succeeded, 
better  than  any  other  poet  of  the  century,  in 
writing  a  verse  which  is  profuse,  luxuriant,  filled 
with  all  imaginative  device,  and  yet  does  not  seem 
forced  or  artificial.  The  In  Memoriam  is  an  ex- 
treme example  of  the  way  in  which  genuinely  pro- 
found reflection,  suffused  with  still  and  brooding 
emotion,  naturally  finds  expression  in  most  highly 
elaborated  artistic  form. 

But  of  all  influences  upon  style  the  most  decisive 
is  that  flowing  directly  from  the  personality  of  the 
writer.  Good  writing  is  always  the  voice  of  a  liv- 
ing man.  Its  subtlest  charm  is  derived  from  its 
individuality.  It  always  suggests,  though  we  can- 
not tell  how,  that  peculiar  and  inexplicable  com- 
bination of  qualities  that  compose  the  character  of 
the  writer.     For  any  man  of  force,  having  by  long 


THE   FOKMAL  ELEMENT  IN   LITERATURE     223 

practice  gained  such  mastery  of  the  mechanics  of 
expression  as  to  be  able  to  utter  himself  with 
justice,  must  come  to  have  a  style  of  his  own ;  its 
verbal  preferences,  its  habitual  forms  of  structure, 
its  rhythm  and  movement — all  will  be  peculiar  to 
him.  His  character  stands  written  in  his  style  as 
surely  as  in  his  face.  Swift,  or  Burke,  or  Johnson, 
or  Buskin,  or  Carlyle,  or  Newman,  each  speaks 
with  his  own  voice,  as  no  other  man.  But  this 
personal  influence  upon  style  cannot  be  explained 
or  measured.  Indeed,  it  is  no  small  part  of  the 
charm  of  the  best  literature  that  this  individual 
quality  refuses  analysis  or  classification.  Every 
great  writer  is  a  species  by  himself.  Not  that 
he  will  strive  to  put  himself  into  any  trick  of 
singularity.  The  feeble  writer  may  posture  and 
put  on  what  he  takes  to  be  the  mask  of  genius. 
But  no  imitation  or  echo,  no  fluency  of  pale  phrase, 
will  content  the  man  who  has  known  the  pains  and 
joys  of  strenuous  thinking.  Intent  above  all  things 
to  utter  himself  truly,  and  knowing  how  hard  it  is 
to  fit  the  right  word  to  every  flexure  of  thought 
and,  harder  still,  to  every  shade  of  feeling  and 
shape  of  fancy,  he  must  needs  bend  language  to  his 
peculiar  use.  He  may  be  careless  of  models,  and 
he  may  sometimes  shock  smug  conventions ;  he  will 
make  his  own  style. 

But  while  individuality  is  not  to  be  classified,  it 
may  be  said  that  there  are,  in  general,  two  opposite 
tendencies  in  personal  expression :  on  the  one  hand, 


224    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

to  clearness  and  precision ;  on  the  other,  to  largeness 
or  profusion.  The  difference  between  the  two  may 
be  seen  by  comparing  such  poetry  as  that  of  Mat- 
thew Arnold  with  that  of  Tennyson,  or  such  prose 
as  that  of  Newman  with  that  of  Jeremy  Taylor. 
Minds  of  the  one  class  insist  on  sharply  defined 
ideas,  on  clearness  of  image,  on  temperance  and 
precision  of  epithet.  Their  style  we  characterize 
as  chaste  or  classic.  The  other  class  have  often  a 
greater  volume  of  thought,  but  less  well  defined; 
more  fervor  and  less  temperance  of  feeling,  more 
abundant  and  vivid  imagery,  more  wealth  of  color, 
but  less  sharpness  of  definition.  Their  thought 
seems  to  move  through  a  haze  of  emotion,  and  often 
through  a  lush  growth  of  imagery.  They  tend  to 
be  ornate  and  profuse  in  manner,  eager  in  temper ; 
they  often  produce  larger  and  deeper  effects,  but 
they  lack  restraint  and  suavity.  It  is  a  contrast 
not  peculiar  to  literature,  but  running  through  all 
forms  of  art.  You  shall  take  your  choice  between 
the  Greek  temple  and  the  Gothic  cathedral,  between 
the  statue  by  Praxiteles  and  the  painting  by  Titian, 
between  the  sonata  by  Beethoven  and  the  opera  by 
Wagner.  The  one  makes  upon  you  the  impression 
of  greater  delicacy,  temperance,  charm ;  the  other, 
the  impression  of  greater  mass,  complexity,  power. 
We  are  not  called  upon  to  pronounce  either  manner 
absolutely  better  than  the  other;  but  it  would 
seem  that,  in  literature  at  least,  the  classic  manner 
is  the  culmination  of  art.     Precision,  in  the  wide 


THE   FORMAL   ELEMENT   IN   LITERATURE     225 

sense,  must  be  the  highest  virtue  of  expression ; 
and  it  is  this  precision,  combined  with  perfect  ease, 
that  constitutes  the  classic  manner.  A  similar 
charm  is  justly  admired  in  all  departments  of  life. 
In  manners,  for  example.  Perfect  grace  without 
artifice,  perfect  simplicity  without  rusticity,  perfect 
ease  without  slackness,  perfect  repose  without  list- 
lessness — how  hard  these  are  to  attain  in  man- 
ners! They  are  harder  yet  in  letters.  And  in 
manners  and  letters  alike  they  are  proof  of  that 
crowning  refinement  in  which  art  and  nature  seem 
at  one.  Individual  tastes  may  justly  differ,  but 
the  ultimate  verdict  of  approval  will  be  given  to 
that  style  in  which  there  is  no  over  coloring  of 
phrase,  no  straining  of  sentiment;  which  knows 
how  to  be  beautiful  without  being  lavish,  how  to 
be  exact  without  being  bald ;  in  which  you  never 
find  a  thicket  of  vague  epithet ;  in  which  the  word, 
though  simple,  is  the  one  right  word.  Such  writ- 
ing, whatever  be  its  content,  is  the  perfection  of 
form,  and  its  effects,  if  not  quite  so  imperative  at 
first,  are  lasting. 
Q 


CHAPTER  SEVENTH 
Poetry 

We  have  now  examined,  if  somewhat  rapidly 
and  in  outline,  the  three  elements  that  must  enter 
into  all  literature,  —  emotion,  thought,  form.  So 
far,  however,  we  have  been  concerned  only  with 
those  general  principles  which  are  true  of  all  va- 
rieties of  literature.  It  remains  in  this  and  the 
following  chapter  to  examine  somewhat  more  care- 
fully two  forms  of  literature  that  are  of  sufficient 
prominence  to  demand  such  special  consideration, 
—  poetry  and  prose  fiction.  This  chapter  shall 
deal,  then,  with  poetry. 

To  define  poetry  is  not  easy.  Part  of  the  diffi- 
culty, doubtless,  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  word, 
like  many  familiar  terms,  is  used  with  vague  and 
varying  significance.  It  means  one  thing  to  one 
man,  and  quite  a  different  thing  to  the  next  man. 
Yet  it  should  seem  that  we  ought  to  be  able  to 
frame  or  find  a  definition  at  once  in  harmony  with 
popular  usage,  and,  at  the  same  time,  approxi- 
mating scientific  precision.  Doubtless,  the  char- 
acteristic uppermost  in  the  popular  mind  when 
poetry  is  mentioned  is  its  form,  some  variety  of 
metre  or  definite  rhythm.  Poetry  is  whatever  is 
226 


POETRY  227 

not  prose.  And  the  notion  is  sanctioned  by- 
some  rhetoricians.  Says  Whateley,1  "Any  com- 
position in  verse  (and  none  that  is  not)  is  always 
called,  whether  good  or  bad,  a  Poem,  by  all  who 
have  no  favorite  hypothesis  to  maintain."  But 
a  moment's  reflection  will  convince  any  one  that 
this  definition,  which  turns  entirely  upon  form, 
does  not  fit  even  the  vague  general  usage  of  the 
word.  The  whole  of  Euclid  might  be  put  into 
iambic  pentameter  couplets  or  blank  verse  (doubt- 
less very  blank),  and  might  be  as  mathematically 
accurate  in  its  feet  as  in  its  reasoning ;  but  would 
any  one,  even  the  plain  man,  with  "no  favorite 
hypothesis  to  maintain,"  ever  mistake  it  for  poetry  ? 
The  lines  beginning,  — 

"  Thirty  days  hath  September," 

are  a  very  convenient  mnemonic,  and  they  are  a 
fairly  accurate  bit  of  versification ;  but  are  they 
a  lyric  poem  ?  It  is  evident  that  no  such  purely 
formal  definition  can  be  satisfactory.  Whether 
any  writing  is,  or  is  not,  poetry  must  depend,  in 
part  at  least,  on  the  nature  of  what  is  written. 

But  when  we  search  for  a  substantial  definition, 
it  is  difficult  to  find  one  that  shall  not  be  either 
too  narrow  —  leaving  out  what  we  feel  to  be  essen- 
tial, or  else  too  broad  —  letting  in  almost  all  forms 
of  polite  literature  or  even  art  in  general.  There 
are,  it  is  true,  many  things  said  about  poetry,  by 

i  "Rhetoric,"  Part  III.,  ch.  III.,  §  3. 


228    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

way  of  description  or  comment ;  but  they  are  not 
definitions.  Some  are  mere  eulogy  upon  the  power 
or  charm  of  poetry ;  some  are  statements  of  inter- 
esting qualities  of  poetry,  accidental  rather  than 
essential ;  some  are  analyses  of  the  mood  of  the 
poet,  the  habit  of  thought  or  feeling  out  of  which 
poetry  naturally  grows. 

Our  early  English  writers  who  attempted  to  state 
what  they  meant  by  poetry  —  and  they  succeeded 
better  in  making  it  than  in  defining  it  —  usually 
followed  Aristotle,  who  defines  the  poet  as  a  maker, 
that  is  one  who  invents  or  imagines.  Thus  Ben 
Jonson  and  Chapman  both  quote  Aristotle,  and 
single  out  invention  and  metrical  skill  as  the 
marks  of  poetry.  Milton's  familiar  characterization 
of  poetry  lays  special  emphasis  upon  its  form ; 
poetry,  he  says,  must  be  "simple,  sensuous,  pas- 
sionate." It  is  a  description  which  perhaps  im- 
plies most  of  the  qualities  of  poetry ;  but  it  is  not 
a  definition.  Other  and  more  modern  writers,  as 
Goethe  and  Landor,  have  been  inclined  to  regard 
poetry  primarily  as  an  art,  and  to  insist  upon  form, 
power  of  artistic  expression,  as  its  distinctive 
mark.  On  the  other  hand,  many  modern  writers, 
especially  many  poets,  have  laid  most  stress  upon 
the  emotional  or  imaginative  content  of  poetry,  and 
its  spirit  rather  than  its  form.  Wordsworth  is 
perhaps  the  great  apostle  of  this  view.  His  re- 
marks upon  poetry  in  the  famous  preface  to  the 
Lyrical  Ballads  are,  indeed,  not  so  much  defini- 


POETRY  229 

tions  as  assertions  of  some  attribute  or  power  of 
poetry  hitherto  overlooked  or  underestimated;  but 
they  all  assume  its  emotional  character  and  value. 
Thus,  he  says,  poetry  "  is  truth  carried  alive  into 
the  heart  by  passion " ;  that  it  is  "  the  first  and 
last  of  all  knowledge  "  ;  that  it  is  "  the  breath  and 
finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge."  In  another  passage, 
however,  Wordsworth  describes  the  rationale  of 
the  poetic  process  in  terms  which  involve  a  genu- 
ine definition  of  poetry  itself :  "  Poetry,"  he  says, 
"  is  the  spontaneous  overflow  of  powerful  feelings, 
taking  its  origin  from  emotion  recollected  in  tran- 
quillity," the  original  emotion  being  contemplated 
in  recollection  till  it  disappears,  and  another,  more 
imaginative  emotion  takes  its  place.  Ruskin's 
definition  belongs  to  the  same  class,  "The  pres- 
entation by  the  imagination  of  noble  grounds  for 
noble  emotions."  The  objection  to  this  is  that  it 
will  include  not  only  poetry,  but  almost  all  art 
whatever. 

Some  writers,  again,  have  given  what  may  be 
termed  a  mystical  definition  of  poetry,  suggested 
by  its  power  to  render  truths  not  to  be  perceived 
by  the  understanding  alone.  Thus  Shelley  in  his 
beautiful,  but  over-subtle  Defence  of  Poetry  de- 
fines poetry  first  as  "  the  expression  of  the  imagi- 
nation," but  as  it  was,  in  his  thought,  the  special 
function  of  the  imagination  to  disclose  supersensual 
truth,  he  finds  the  distinguishing  mark  of  poetry 
to  be  its  power  to  reveal  and  illuminate.    Similarly, 


230    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Emerson  says,  "Poetry  is  the  perpetual  endeavor 
to  express  the  spirit  of  things."  And  Browning, 
in  his  essay  on  Shelley,  dropping  out  of  sight  alto- 
gether the  element  of  form,  as  it  might  be  expected 
he  would,  declares  poetry  to  be  "  the  presentment 
of  the  correspondency  of  the  Universe  to  the  Deity, 
of  the  natural  to  the  spiritual,  and  of  the  actual 
to  the  ideal."  Matthew  Arnold's  famous  defi- 
nition, "  The  criticism  of  life  under  the  conditions 
fixed  for  such  a  criticism  by  the  laws  of  poetic 
truth  and  poetic  beauty,"  is  nothing  more  than  a 
description  half  vague  and  half  tautological;  for 
the  phrase,  "a  criticism  of  life,"  is  certainly  not 
very  clear,  and  what  "  the  laws  of  poetic  truth  and 
poetic  beauty  "  are,  we  evidently  cannot  know  till 
we  first  know  what  poetry  is. 

Sometimes  we  find  a  kind  of  omnibus  definition, 
aiming  to  be  broad  enough  to  include  all  elements 
ever  ascribed  to  poetry.  A  good  example  is  found 
in  Leigh  Hunt's  pleasing  essay,  What  is  Poetry  9 
"  Poetry,"  he  says,  "  is  the  utterance  of  a  passion 
for  truth,  beauty,  and  power,  embodying  and  illus- 
trating its  conceptions  by  imagination  and  fancy, 
and  modulating  its  language  on  the  principle  of  va- 
riety and  uniformity."  Mr.  Stedman,  whose  work, 
The  Nature  of  Poetry,  is  the  most  thoughtful  and 
luminous  discussion  of  the  whole  subject  in  recent 
times,  gives  as  his  initial  definition  a  statement 
broad  enough  to  include  form,  substance,  and  varied 
effect:    "  Poetry   is   rhythmical,   imaginative    Ian- 


POETRY  231 

guage,   expressing   the   invention,   taste,    thought, 
passion,  and  insight  of  the  human  soul." 

If  to  this  multitude  of  definitions  by  the  highest 
authorities  we  presume  to  add  another,  it  is  from 
a  desire  to  reach  a  statement  simpler  than  most  of 
those  quoted,  and  withal  growing  more  directly 
out  of  our  definition  of  literature  already  given  — 
since  poetVy  is  certainly  one  species  of  the  genus 
literature.  Coleridge,  whose  critical  observations  are 
usually  profound  and  always  suggestive,  remarks 
that  "the  antithesis  of  poetry  is  not  prose,  but 
science."  This  is  true;  but  if  our  definition  of 
literature  be  correct,  not  poetry  alone,  but,  more 
broadly,  all  literature  is  in  antithesis  to  science. 
We  have  seen  that  it  is  only  by  virtue  of  its  power 
to  move  the  emotions  that  any  writing  gains  literary 
quality.  In  many  forms  of  literature,  as  in  history, 
this  appeal  to  the  emotions  is  not  the  primary 
object,  but  is  rather  secondary  and  incidental; 
while  in  still  other  forms,  as  oratory,  this  appeal 
to  the  emotions,  though  the  immediate  object,  is 
only  a  means  to  an  end.  But  there  yet  remains 
a  kind  of  writing  of  which  the  first  purpose 
is  to  stir  the  emotions,  or,  if  the  expression  be 
preferred,  to  give  pleasure.  We  have  here  a  wide 
range  of  literature,  Avhich,  if  it  instructs,  does 
so  only  indirectly;  if  it  influences  the  will  and 
determines  conduct  —  as  it  doubtless  does  in  many 
instances  —  yet  exerts  that  influence  incidentally 
and,  as  it  were,  unconsciously;   but  whose  object 


232     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

and  purpose  is  to  arouse  pleasant  emotions  for 
their  own  sake.  Now  for  this  wide  variety  of 
literature  we  lack  a  generic  name.  We  may  term 
it  the  Literature  of  Emotion;  or,  as  the  power  to 
touch  the  emotions  is  always  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  literature,  we  may  call  the  writing  which 
makes  this  its  prime  object  Pure  Literature.  But 
this  whole  body  of  writing,  whatever  it  be  called, 
may  be  divided  into  species  by  its  form,  and  the 
characteristic  mark  of  one  of  these  species  is  that 
it  is  written  in  some  form  of  metrical  language. 
This  is  poetry.  If,  then,  we  had  a  name  for  all 
that  kind  of  writing  which  finds  its  purpose  in  the 
appeal  to  the  feelings,  we  could  readily  frame  a 
definition  of  poetry.  Thus,  if  we  may  call  such 
writing  the  Literature  of  Emotion,  we  may  define 
poetry  as  TJiat  variety  of  the  Literature  of  Emotion 
which  is  written  in  metrical  form.  Or,  abandoning 
the  strictly  logical  style  of  definition,  we  may  say 
that  poetry  is  that  form  of  literature  whose  purpose 
is  to  appeal  to  the  emotions,  and  which  is  written 
in  metrical  form.  These  two  are  the  essential,  de- 
fining elements  of  poetry;  it  must  appeal  to  the 
emotions  as  an  end,  and  it  must  have  some  sort  of 
metrical  form.  Wherever  you  have  both  these  ele- 
ments in  combination,  you  have  poetry  —  and  only 
there.  If  you  have  the  first  without  the  second,  you 
may  have  prose  fiction,  or  the  brief  descriptive  essay, 
or  prose  that,  like  some  of  De  Quincey's  or  some 
of  Ruskin's,  may  be  called  poetical;   but  without 


POETRY  233 

the  other,  or  musical  element,  you  cannot  have 
poetry.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  as  has  been 
already  said,  the  most  perfect  metrical  form  can- 
not make  poetry  of  purely  intellectual  material. 
From  this  definition  it  is  evident  that,  both  in 
matter  and  form,  poetry  is  the  purest  and  highest 
variety  of  literature.  That  which  is  the  distinc- 
tive mark  of  all  literature,  the  power  of  appeal  to 
the  emotions,  becomes  now  the  end  and  purpose  of 
the  writing ;  while  the  demands  of  form  are  obvi- 
ously more  complex  and  exacting  than  in  any  other 
variety  of  the  literary  art. 

It  may  possibly  be  objected  that  this  definition 
is  too  narrow.  Some  kinds  of  poetry,  it  will  be 
urged,  are  designed,  as  history  and  criticism  are 
designed,  to  appeal  rather  to  the  intellect  than  to 
the  emotions.  And  yet  this  didactic  poetry  is 
very  genuine  poetry,  often,  indeed,  famous  poetry 
—  Pope's  Essay  on  Man,  for  example.  But  this 
objection  is  only  apparent.  All  verse  which  is 
really  poetry,  however  didactic  its  theme,  must 
find  its  first  purpose  in  emotion,  not  in  instruction. 
The  Essay  on  Man  is  as  surely  designed  to  stir 
the  feelings  as  Shelley's  lyrics  are.  If  its  aim 
ivere  to  give  instruction,  that  aim  could  be  at- 
tained much  better  in  prose.  Bolingbroke's  Es- 
says, whence  all  the  philosophy  of  Pope's  poem  is 
derived,  are  a  much  better  exposition  of  that  phi- 
losophy than  the  poem  is ;  but  they  have  no  poetic 
value.     Of  course  poetry  may  incidentally  be  of 


234    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

great  service  as  a  teacher  of  truth ;  nay,  it  must 
be.  Since  the  healthy  cultivation  of  the  emotions 
is  the  most  important  part  of  education,  it  follows 
that  all  really  great  poetry,  which  is  concerned 
with  the  capital  emotions  of  our  nature,  must 
always  be  of  the  highest  value  for  the  inspiration 
and  the  guidance  of  life ;  it  carries  truths  not  into 
the  understanding,  but  into  the  heart,  where  they 
can  be  vitalized  and  issue  in  conduct.  But  all  this 
—  of  which  something  more  remains  to  be  said  on 
a  later  page  —  is  a  secondary  influence  of  poetry, 
not  part  of  its  essential  character. 

But  while  didactic  verse  may  be  genuine  poetry, 
we  have  an  instinctive  feeling  that  it  cannot  be 
poetry  of  the  highest  rank.  And  this  feeling  finds 
justification  in  our  definition.  For  the  rank  of 
poetry,  so  far  as  it  depends  on  its  subject,  will 
be  governed  by  the  rules  set  down  above — in 
Chapter  Third  —  for  the  emotional  measurement 
of  all  literature.  Now  it  is  a  familiar  fact  of  our 
nature  that  the  strongest  emotions  are  those  excited 
by  particular  actions  and  individual  persons,  such 
as  in  literature  it  is  the  office  of  the  imagination 
to  present.  The  emotions  growing  directly  out  of 
abstract  or  general  truths  are  fainter  and  unimpas- 
sioned.  Hence  any  didactic  or  reflective  poetry, 
dealing  largely  with  such  truths,  can  never  be  of 
the  highest  rank.  It  must  stir  a  lesser  volume  of 
feeling,  and  a  feeling  less  intense  and  concentrated 
than  the   verse  which   portrays  individual   action 


POETRY  235 

and  passion.  No  matter  how  nice  the  art,  how 
skillful  the  handling;  no  matter  if  the  verse,  like 
some  of  Pope's,  attain  a  fame  as  widespread  and 
a  familiarity  as  universal  as  any  other  poetry  in 
the  world,  and  fill  the  speech  of  mankind  ever 
thereafter  with  pithy  or  sparkling  quotation,  yet 
men  will  still  feel  that  as  poetry,  however  perfect 
of  its  kind,  it  is  not  the  highest  kind. 

Poetry,  as  we  have  defined  it,  is  distinguished 
from  other  varieties  of  the  literature  of  emotion, 
as,  for  example,  from  fiction,  by  the  fact  that  it 
is  in  metrical  form.  But  this  metrical  form  is 
not  an  arbitrary  mechanical  difference  imposed 
from  without;  it  arises  from  an  inner  necessity. 
For  the  ultimate  ground  of  distinction  between 
poetry  and  other  forms  of  literature  would  seem 
to  be  that  poetry  not  only,  like  fiction,  finds  its 
object  and  end  in  an  appeal  to  the  emotions,  but 
is  at  every  point  the  language  of  emotion.1  Now 
the  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  sustained  expres- 
sion of  emotion  naturally  and   almost   inevitably 

1  This  statement  coincides  with  Coleridge's  familiar  defini- 
tion of  a  poem.  "  A  poem  is  that  species  of  composition  which 
is  opposed  to  works  of  science,  by  proposing  for  its  immediate 
object  pleasure,  not  truth ;  and  from  all  other  species  (having 
this  object  in  common  with  it)  it  is  discriminated  by  proposing 
to  itself  such  delight  from  the  whole  as  is  compatible  with  a 
distinct  gratification  from  each  component  part."  "  Biographia 
Literaria,"  ch.  xiv.  In  a  later  paragraph,  Coleridge,  it  is  true, 
distinguishes  between  a  poem  and  poetry;  but  he  gives  n» 
clear  definition  of  poetry,  which  he  seems  inclined  to  consider 
subjectively  as  a  temper  of  the  poet,  rather  than  objectively 
as  a  product  of  his  art. 


236    PRINCIPLES    OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

falls  into  some  form  of  metre,  at  all  events  into 
some  form  of  rhythm.  Laughter  and  sobbing, 
anger  or  gladness,  impassioned  entreaty,  threat  or 
endearment,  —  all  have  a  more  or  less  well-marked 
rhythm ;  and  all  conscious  and  formulated  ex- 
pression of  emotion,  such  as  can  find  place  in  liter- 
ature, must  be  in  that  definite  or  measured  rhythm 
which  we  call  metre.  Without  such  measure  the 
rhythm  of  strong  emotion  is  inarticulate  and  un- 
intelligent; it  is  not  yet  art.  But  the  moment 
the  poet  attempts  to  give  purposed  utterance  to 
his  feeling,  in  order  to  convey  that  feeling  to  an- 
other, then  his  language  tends  to  take  on  metrical 
form. 

Proof  of  this  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  the 
language  of  intense  emotion,  if  thrown  altogether 
out  of  metre,  is  sure  to  seem  inflated,  bombastic, 
ejaculatory,  or  in  some  other  way  unnatural; 
while  if  the  same  language  and  sentiments  are 
put  into  metrical  form,  we  feel  nothing  forced 
or  unnatural  in  them.  Hence  prose  translations 
of  poetry  (though  for  other  reasons  they  may  some- 
times be  the  best  practicable)  are  likely,  if  at  all 
literal,  to  appear  stilted  or  grandiose ;  and  a  prose 
paraphrase  of  a  poem  in  the  same  language  is  usu- 
ally impossible  without  almost  entire  change  of  the 
diction.  For  the  same  reason,  the  passages  of  so- 
called  prose-poetry  that  some  English  writers  have 
attempted  —  as  De  Quincey  in  his  Suspiria  de 
Profundi*  —  are  seldom  very  successful.     They  are 


POETRY  237 

a  sort  of  bastard  literary  form,  and  usually  miss 
both  the  charm  of  verse  and  the  ease  of  prose. 

That  emotion  naturally  expresses  itself  in  metre 
may  be  further  seen  in  the  fact  that  pure  emotion, 
unconnected  with  any  definite  thought  whatever, 
finds  adequate  expression  in  pure  metre,  that  is, 
in  music.  For  music  is  the  most  complete  and 
complex  kind  of  metre.  So  long  as  we  have  only 
emotion  to  express,  we  need  only  music.  Music 
is,  therefore,  as  we  have  seen,  the  most  typical  of 
all  arts  in  that  it  expresses  in  detachment  from  all 
other  elements  the  one  essential  of  all  art,  emo- 
tion. But  when  the  element  of  definite  thought 
enters,  then  we  need,  of  course,  language ;  but,  as 
that  thought  is  to  be  combined  at  every  point  with 
emotion,  we  need  to  retain  also  the  musical  form 
of  expression  so  far  as  that  can  be  adapted  to  lan- 
guage. If,  then,  poetry  is  characterized  as  the  sus- 
tained expression  of  emotion,  its  metrical  form 
becomes  something  more  than  an  adornment,  an 
appropriate  but  separable  adjunct  j  it  becomes  an 
essential  part. 

Moreover,  not  its  metrical  form  alone,  but  all  the 
characteristic  qualities  of  poetry  may  be  seen  to 
flow  out  of  this  essential  and  defining  quality  — 
that  it  is  the  language  of  emotion.  For  though 
poetry  may  conveniently  be  distinguished  from 
other  species  of  the  literature  of  emotion  by  its 
metrical  form,  that  is  not  the  only  difference  be- 
tween them.     If  it  were,  then  it  would  be  possible 


238    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

to  change  a  novel,  say  of  Walter  Scott  or  of  George 
Eliot,  into  a  poem  merely  by  putting  it  into  metre. 
It  is  quite  possible  to  conceive  that  this  might  be 
done  without  any  essential  alteration  of  the  inci- 
dents, the  arrangement  and  divisions  of  the  novel, 
or  its  general  treatment ;  but  would  the  result  be 
a  poem?  After  a  moment's  reflection  every  one 
would  answer  in  the  negative.  A  poem  may  be 
turned  into  a  story,  —  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb's 
Tales  from  Shakespeare  are  examples,  —  but  a  story 
may  not  be  turned  into  a  poem  simply  by  changing 
it  from  prose  to  metre.  Now  and  then  we  find 
something  like  a  novel  in  verse,  as  Mrs.  Browning's 
Aurora  Leigh;  but  such  nondescript  specimens  of 
literary  form  are  never  of  any  very  high  value 
either  as  novels  or  as  poetry. 

What,  then,  are  the  differences  between  the  novel 
and  the  poem  which  grow  out  of  this  essential 
characteristic  of  the  poem  that  it  is,  at  every  point, 
the  language  of  emotion  ?  In  the  first  place,  the 
poem  must  be  briefer  than  the  novel.  And  this 
not  merely  because  emotion  is  transient.  This 
accounts  for  the  brevity  of  the  lyric,  since  the 
intense  emotion  that  finds  expression  in  the  lyric 
is  by  its  nature  fleeting ;  but  emotion  of  a  different 
quality  may  be  sustained,  though  on  a  lower  level 
than  that  of  the  lyric,  throughout  a  long  poem  or 
drama.  Yet  in  such  a  case  it  will  be  found  that 
the  poem  is  briefer  than  a  novel  covering  the  same 
ground  and  concerned  with  the   same  incidents. 


POETRY  239 

This  is  because  the  poem,  being  the  language  of 
emotion,  is  obliged  to  leave  out  all  matters  that 
cannot  sustain  emotion.  If  it  be  narrative  or  epic 
in  theme,  it  touches  only  the  high  points  of  the 
story.  Its  incidents  must  be  fewer  and  bolder. 
The  poem  will  not  permit  much  elaboration  or 
intricacy  of  plot,  because  that  necessitates  a  good 
deal  of  writing  having  merely  a  constructive  or 
explanatory  value,  and  such  passages  let  down  the 
emotional  power  of  the  language.  For  the  same 
reason,  the  action  of  the  personages  of  the  poem 
must  be  intelligible  without  exposition  or  analysis ; 
simply  because  anything  in  the  nature  of  analysis 
or  comment,  while  it  may  heighten  the  interest  of 
the  novel,  cannot  be  expressed  in  the  language  of 
emotion  and  so  would  drop  the  poem  out  of  the 
poetic  key.  In  poetry  feeling  must  be  exhibited, 
not  described ;  hence  any  account  or  analysis  of 
feeling  is  usually  impossible,  unless  it  be  given 
dramatically  by  the  subject  of  the  feeling  himself. 
Similarly  all  description  in  poetry  must  be  emo- 
tional, not  topographical ;  and  emotional  description 
is  always  brief  and  vivid,  seeing  through  the  im- 
agination in  broad,  bright  glimpses,  not  carefully 
accumulating  and  arranging  details.  In  all  these 
ways,  then,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  poem  must  be 
briefer  than  the  novel.  The  difference  may  be 
noticed  by  comparing  any  one  of  Scott's  romantic 
poems  with  one  of  his  novels. 

It  follows,  secondly,  from  this  essential  quality 


240    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

of  poetry  as  the  language  of  emotion  that  poetry- 
must  differ  from  all  other  writing  in  diction  and 
structure.  And  this  not  merely  on  account  of  its 
metrical  form :  the  language  of  poetry  will  differ 
from  that  of  prose  in  quality  and  power  as  well  as 
in  strictly  musical  effect.  This  has,  indeed,  been 
denied.  The  reader  will  at  once  recall  Words- 
worth's familiar  assertion,  in  the  Preface  to  the 
Lyrical  Ballads,  "  that  there  neither  is  nor  can 
be  any  essential  difference  between  the  language 
of  prose  and  metrical  composition."  But  it  must 
be  admitted  that  Coleridge  in  two  admirable  chap- 
ters of  the  Biograjjhia  Literaria  has  shown  this 
statement  to  be  far  too  sweeping.  Wordsworth 
was  protesting,  in  the  interests  of  nature  and  sim- 
plicity, against  the  conventional  "  poetic  diction  " 
of  the  last  century.  The  poets  of  the  previous  age 
had  felt  bound  to  preserve  a  certain  artificial  re- 
finement of  language;  they  did  not  dare  to  call 
plain  things  by  plain  names.  Wordsworth  was 
quite  right  in  contending  that,  under  such  restric- 
tions, poetry  lost  sincerity  and  freshness  of  phrase. 
A  word  is  not  unfit  for  poetic  use  because  it  is 
plain  or  homely.  On  the  contrary,  the  simplest 
word  is  often  most  moving  and  hence  most  poetical, 
as  Wordsworth  himself  has  proved  a  thousand 
times.     His  line,  — 

"  The  stars  that  move  along  the  edges  of  the  hills," 
is  better  than  a  half  acre  of  florid  description;  the 
strength  of  the  hills,  the  sublimity  of  the  lonely 


POETRY  241 

sky,  the  unstaying  courses  of  the  stars  —  they  are 
all  in  that  line.  Often  one  such  homely  word  will 
intensify  by  contrast  the  effect  of  a  passage  made 
up  of  less  familiar  diction.  Notice,  for  example, 
how  this  picture  of  reeling  tempest  seems  to  culmi- 
nate in  the  single  word  wet :  — 

"  Wilt  thou  upon  the  high  and  giddy  mast 
Seal  up  the  ship-hoy's  eyes,  and  rock  his  brains 
In  cradle  of  the  rude  imperious  surge, 
And  in  the  visitation  of  the  winds, 
Who  take  the  ruffian  billows  by  the  top, 
Curling  their  monstrous  heads,  and  hanging  them 
With  deafening  clamors  in  the  slippery  clouds, 
That  with  the  hurly  death  itself  awakes  ? 
Canst  thou,  O  partial  Sleep,  give  thy  repose 
To  the  wet  sea-boy  in  an  hour  so  rude, 
And  in  the  calmest  and  most  stillest  night 
****** 
Deny  it  to  a  King  !  " 

But  while  the  language  of  prose  is  not  differenti- 
ated from  that  of  poetry  by  homeliness  or  famil- 
iarity, we  cannot  assent  to  the  statement  of  Words- 
worth that  there  are  no  essential  differences  at  all 
between  them.  The  truth  is  that  Wordsworth 
was  not  nicely  sensitive  to  the  emotional  value  of 
words.  Before  all  things  sincere,  and  almost  mor- 
bidly fearful  of  anything  that  should  seem  merely 
decorative,  he  failed  to  appreciate  in  other  poetry 
those  delicate  or  subtle  charms  of  phrase  of  which 
he  had  himself  no  mastery.  And  in  this  respect, 
as  in  some  others,  he  was  too  prone  to  mistake 

B 


242    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

the  limitations  of  his  own  genius  for  universal  laws. 
It  may  be  true  that  a  style  so  austere  as  his  can 
confine  itself  to  words  that  would  be  equally  ap- 
propriate in  prose;  but  the  converse  is  not  true. 
It  is  not  true  that  all  words  fit  for  a  pure  and  dig- 
nified prose  style  will  be  found  equally  in  place  in 
poetry.  Wordsworth  himself  too  frequently  for- 
gets that  —  with  deplorable  results.  When  he  is  at 
his  best  he  has  a  high,  patriarchal  simplicity  of 
manner  which  is  better  than  any  adornment ;  when 
his  inspiration  leaves  him,  he  can  scatter  through 
his  verse  bits  of  cold  gritty  prose  that  fairly  make 
the  reader  shiver.  Such  lines  as  the  following 
would  seem  to  show  clearly  enough  the  unfortu- 
nate effect  of  thrusting  into  verse  the  diction  of 
prose : — 

"  Proud  Gordon,  maddened  by  the  thoughts 
That  through  his  brain  are  travelling, 
Rushed  forth,  and  at  the  heart  of  Bruce 
He  launched  a  deadly  javelin  ! 
Fair  Ellen  saw  it  as  it  came 
And,  starting  up  to  meet  the  same. 
Did  with  her  body  cover 
The  youth,  her  chosen  lover. 

****** 
But  many  days  and  many  months, 
And  many  years  ensuing, 
This  wretched  knight  did  vainly  seek 
The  death  that  he  was  wooing. 
So,  coming  his  last  help  to  crave, 
Heart-broken  upon  Ellen's  grave 
His  body  he  extended, 
And  there  his  sorrows  ended. ' ' 


POETRY  243 

The  simple  law  is  that  poetry  should  admit  no 
word  which,  because  of  its  predominant  intellectual 
content  or  because  of  its  habitual  associations,  is 
unfitted  to  be  the  expression  of  feeling.  Poetry  is 
entirely,  prose  only  in  part,  the  utterance  of  emo- 
tion ;  the  vocabularies  of  the  two  cannot  therefore 
coincide  throughout.  Compare  the  dialogue  in  any 
genuinely  poetical  drama  with  the  conversation  in 
a  novel.  The  talk  of  the  persons  in  the  novel  is 
usually  a  selection  from  the  language  of  real  life. 
We  pronounce  it  natural ;  that,  we  say,  is  the  way 
people  really  talk  with  each  other  when  they  are 
at  their  best.  But  there  never  was  any  talk  so 
good  as  that  of  Shakspere's  characters.  It  is 
idealized  ;  it  is  too  felicitous,  too  full  of  imagination 
to  be  the  actual  conversation  of  men  and  women. 
Yet  it  seems  natural,  because  the  whole  drama  is 
pitched  in  a  key  of  emotion  higher  than  that  of 
normal  experience :  it  is  poetry. 

To  specify  the  ways  in  which  the  language  of 
poetry  is  thus  differentiated  from  that  of  prose 
would  be  impossible.  Language  is  such  an  infi- 
nitely complex  thing,  and  its  influence  upon  the 
feelings  is  wrought  by  such  a  wonderful  variety  of 
means  —  by  felicities  of  arrangement,  by  rhythm 
and  cadence,  by  suggestion  and  association  —  that 
we  can  never  presume  to  explain  the  charm  of 
poetic  phrase.  Precisely  there  is  the  secret  of 
genius  that  no  one  can  disclose  —  not  even  genius 
itself.     All  we  can  say  is  that  the  poet  finds  the 


244    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

words  which  match  his  feelings,  words  which  seem 
new  and  fresh  and  remain  so  forever.  The  poetic 
gift  is  very  largely  a  matter  of  expression.  We 
who  have  never  been  rash  enough  to  write  a  verse, 
may  have  the  poet's  feeling,  but  we  have  not  his 
gift  of  utterance.     I  read  Wordsworth's  lines,  — 

"  Will  no  one  tell  me  what  she  sings  ? 
Perhaps  the  plaintive  numbers  flow 
For  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things 
And  battles  long  ago." 

Or  Shelley's,  — 

"  We  look  before  and  after, 
And  pine  for  what  is  not, 
Our  sincerest  laughter 
With  some  pain  is  fraught ; 
Our  sweetest  songs  are  those  that  tell  of  saddest  thought." 

Or  Tennyson's,  — 

"Break,  break,  break, 

At  the  foot  of  thy  crags,  O  sea  ! 
But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 
Will  never  come  back  to  me  ! " 

and  I  say,  this  emotion  I  too  have  known,  but  I 
cannot  tell  it.  It  is  this  power  of  one  man  to  say 
what  thousands  of  men  have  felt  that  sets  these 
lines  apart  as  poetry. 

And  it  may  be  doubted  whether  this  gift  can  ever 
be  acquired.  It  may  be  cultivated,  it  is  cultivated 
by  all  who  have  exercised  it  in  any  high  degree ; 
but  the  original  impulse  and  faculty  is  not  to  be 
laboriously  striven  after.  It  is  inborn  or  it  is  not 
at  all. 


POETRY  245 

It  is  evident,  from  these  considerations,  that 
poetry  can  never  be  translated.  Its  finer  and  subtler 
essence  always  escapes  in  the  process.  Dependent 
for  its  individual  poetic  quality,  in  every  instance, 
upon  the  inexplicable  power  of  language,  that 
quality  is  lost  the  moment  the  language  is  changed. 
The  intellectual  content  of  a  poem,  the  outlines  of 
its  imagery,  its  more  vague  and  general  emotional 
effects — these  may  be  transferred  to  another  tongue. 
The  translator  may  be  content  with  these,  and  win 
the  praise  of  what  is  called  fidelity;  or,  if  he  be 
himself  a  poet,  he  may  weave  the  thought  and 
imagery  of  his  author  into  a  new  poem  of  his  own 
which  shall  run  parallel  with  the  original  and  have 
perhaps  a  similar  charm.  But  in  either  case  his 
work  is  seen  to  be  something  very  different  from 
the  poem  he  has  attempted  to  translate. 

The  fact  that  poetry  must  be  the  immediate 
language  of  emotion  explains  the  popular  tendency 
to  attribute  to  the  poet  a  certain  inspiration  which 
industry  and  learning  cannot  compass,  and  which 
sets  his  work  above  all  other  writing.  This 
tendency  is  doubtless  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  the 
poetic  gift  of  language  is  incommunicable  and  inex- 
plicable, and  hence  seems,  as  it  is,  mysterious.  But 
the  tendency  implies  something  more  than  this.  It 
was  not  without  significance  that  the  Greeks  named 
the  poet  a  creator ;  that  the  Hebrews  had  the  same 
name  for  poet  and  for  prophet,  and  evidently  iden- 
tified the  two  conceptions,  much  as  they  are  in  the 


246     PRINCIPLES  OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

Latin  word  vates.  Such  modern  definitions  of 
poetry  as  those  cited  above  from  Wordsworth  and 
Arnold  —  "  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowl- 
edge," "  the  criticism  of  life  "  —  are  not  empty 
phrases.  They  bear  testimony  to  the  enduring 
conviction  that  the  poet  has  not  only  emotion  and 
utterance,  but  insight ;  that  he  is,  in  some  way,  a 
revealer  of  the  deepest  truth.  And  such  an  opin- 
ion is  justified  by  the  facts.  Great  poets  have 
always  something  of  the  seer.  In  their  pages  we 
read  the  meaning  of  life,  and  discover  its  real 
issues.  Now  this  wisdom,  this  power  of  genuine 
poetry  to  interpret  life,  is  the  direct  result  of  its 
emotional  character.  For  life  is  determined  by  the 
emotions.  Our  motives  are  never  found  in  the 
realm  of  abstract  and  general  truth;  only  when 
such  truths  have  been  passed  through  the  feel- 
ings can  they  take  hold  upon  conduct.  It  fol- 
lows that  all  really  vital  truths,  being  largely 
truths  of  emotion,  are  to  be  reached  not  by  a  purely 
logical  process,  but  by  an  exercise  of  the  sym- 
pathies. A  certain  exaltation  of  emotion  is,  there- 
fore, almost  always  a  condition  of  that  knowledge 
of  life  which  we  expect  of  the  great  poets.  Says 
Browning,  the  poet  of  strongest  passion  and  deepest 
insight  among  modern  singers :  — 

11  Oh,  we're  sunk  enough  here,  God  knows  ! 
But  not  quite  so  sunk  that  moments, 
Sure  tho'  seldom,  are  denied  us, 
When  the  spirit's  true  endowments 


POETRY  247 

Stand  out  plainly  from  its  false  ones, 
And  apprise  it  if  pursuing, 
Or  the  right  way  or  the  wrong  way, 
To  its  triumph  or  undoing." 

It  is  only  poetry  that  can  give  adequate  expression 
to  these  high  points  of  life ;  it  is  to  poetry,  there- 
fore, that  we  look  for  spiritual  vision  and  spirit- 
ual stimulus.  The  best  poetry  is  by  far  the  best 
of  all  reading,  the  most  profitable  for  real  wisdom. 
It  is  not  a  mere  rhetorical  salvo  to  say  that  the 
poet  is  our  wisest  teacher :  it  is  simple  truth. 

Proof  of  this  may  be  seen  in  the  undeniable  fact 
that  the  inner  history  of  any  age,  the  record  of  its 
deepest  currents  of  thought  and  feeling,  is  always 
best  read  in  its  poetry.  What  picture  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  England  from  1830  to  1870  is  half 
so  vivid  or  half  so  true  as  that  which  we  may  see 
in  Tennyson's  In  Memoriam,  in  Matthew  Arnold's 
verse,  and  in  Robert  Browning's  ?  And  the  same 
is  true  of  the  age  of  Byron,  of  Pope,  of  Spenser, 
of  Dante.  The  poet  is  usually  in  the  forefront  of 
his  age;  often,  indeed,  a  little  in  advance  of  it, 
and  so  anticipates  the  philosopher.  And  that  be- 
cause he  represents  the  somewhat  vague  emotional 
apprehension  of  truth  which  commonly  precedes 
clear  recognition  and  reasoned  explanation.  An 
age  is  like  the  individual,  who  often  feels  a  thing 
to  be  so  long  before  he  can  reason  it  out.  Our 
emotional  and  intuitive  perceptions  usually  run 
ahead  of  our  logic.     Coming  truth  seems  to  send 


248    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

its  light  and  thrill  before.  The  poet  reproduces 
this  anticipatory  feeling,  ill-defined,  but  poignant, 
which  is  prophetic  of  general  acceptance  and  philo- 
sophic justification. 

The  metrical  or  musical  form  of  poetry,  as  we 
have  said,  flows  directly  from  its  essential  charac- 
ter as  the  language  of  emotion.  Considerations  of 
form  are,  therefore,  more  important  in  poetry  than 
in  any  other  variety  of  literature.  Extended  dis- 
cussion of  metrics  would,  however,  be  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  plan  of  this  book.  It  must  suffice 
to  state  here  briefly  those  principles  by  which  the 
technique  of  the  poet's  art  is  to  be  understood  and 
estimated. 

Poetical  metre  is,  of  course,  purely  a  matter  of 
sound ;  it  is  an  attempt  to  produce,  so  far  as  possi- 
ble within  the  limitations  of  ordinary  speech,  the 
effects  of  music.  It  is  true  that  the  rules  of  music, 
being  based  upon  exact  scientific  laws,  are  more 
precise  and  more  inflexible  than  those  of  metre  can 
be.  Music  is  a  much  more  definite  and  limited  art 
than  poetry  ;  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is 
rather  a  close  analogy  than  an  identity  between  the 
two.  Yet  the  analogy  is  so  close  that  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  metrics  may  be  best  understood 
by  comparison  with  those  of  music.1  Both  musical 
and  metrical  effects  alike  depend  upon  four  kinds 

1  This  substantial  identity  of  musical  and  poetic  form  is  the 
thesis  of  Sidney  Lanier's  "  Science  of  English  Verse,"  a  book 


POETRY  249 

of  variation  in  sound.  Sounds,  whether  in  music 
or  verse,  may  be :  1,  Long  or  short ;  2,  Loud  or  soft ; 
3,  High  or  low;  4,  Different  in  quality  in  accordance 
with  the  different  instruments  or  different  parts  of 
the  same  instrument  by  which  they  are  produced. 
On  these  four  kinds  of  variation  are  based  the 
four  essential  elements  of  poetry :  Quantity,  or 
Time ;  Accent,  that  is,  extra  loudness  or  force  of 
utterance ;  Pitch,  that  is,  position  in  the  musical 
scale ;  and  Quality,  or  variation  in  nature  of  tone. 

How  these  elements  enter  into  music  is  obvious 
enough.  The  quantity  is  time  measured  by  notes 
and  bars,  —  so  many  notes  or  their  equivalent  time 
in  rests  to  each  bar;  the  accent  serves  to  divide  the 
measures  from  each  other  for  the  ear ;  the  varying 
pitch  of  consecutive  notes  makes  the  melody,  or 
tune ;  while  varying  effects  of  quality  are  produced 
by  playing  the  same  melody  on  different  instru- 
ments, or  on  different  stops  of  the  same  instrument 
if  at  all  complex,  like  the  organ. 

But  all  these  elements,  we  shall  see,  enter, 
though  with  less  precision,  into  poetry  as  surely 
as  into  music ;  the  one  most  prominent  in  music 
—  pitch  or  melody  —  being  least  prominent  in 
verse. 

It  is  often  asserted  that  English  verse  is  based 

which,  though  open  to  criticism  in  many  of  its  historical  and 
linguistic  statements,  gives  a  most  suggestive  exposition  of  the 
principles  of  metre.  The  analysis  of  the  elements  common  to 
the  two  arts  of  music  and  poetry  given  in  the  following  para- 
graphs follows  in  the  main  that  of  Lanier. 


250    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

solely  upon  accent,  and  not  at  all  upon  quantity. 
But  this  is  not  true.  There  is  not,  indeed,  in 
modern  languages,  as  there  was  in  ancient,  an 
unvarying  syllabic  quantity ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
same  word  may  take  varying  lengths  according  to 
circumstances.  For  instance,  if  we  indicate  length 
of  time  as  it  is  indicated  in  music,  these  lines  of 
Tennyson  would  be  noted  something  as  follows :* — 

"Break,  break,  break, 
On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  sea  1 " 

d      X  I  ^      *l^     *•   *  4  4a>  l  4     &\   4>  4>* 

Where  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  word  on,  for 
example,  has  only  about  a  quarter  as  much  time 
as  the  word  cold.  But  the  same  word  with  other 
meaning  or  in  other  metrical  position  might  have  a 
great  deal  more  time.     As  in  the  familiar  line  — 

"  Charge,  Chester,  charge  !    On,  Stanley,  on  ! " 

which  might  be  written  in  quantity  thus :  — 

•      I    I       I    I    J    I   J      I    I       I    I    J      I 

a      !  4     4    l  a    >  a      '  *     #    [  a      ■ 

But  while  it  is  true  that  syllables  have  in  English 
no  unvarying  quantity,  it  is  true,  nevertheless,  that 
quantity,  or  the  time  occupied  in  utterance,  is  the 
basis  of  our  system  of  verse.  A  line  or  verse  of 
poetry  is  divided  into  feet  or   measures,  and  the 

1  The  example  is  taken  from  Lanier,  p.  101.    I  have,  how- 
ever, ventured  to  change  his  notation  slightly.    See  p.  253. 


POETRY  251 

unit  of  measurement  is  always  a  unit  of  time. 
That  is,  the  successive  feet  in  a  verse,  whatever 
the  number  of  syllables  in  each,  are  all  alike  in 
time.  These  feet  are  set  off  from  each  other, 
for  the  ear,  by  the  accent;  but  the  accent  is 
merely  a  mark  of  division,  and  must  presuppose 
some  principle  of  division,  some  unit  of  measure- 
ment. It  is  often  said  that  a  foot  in  English  verse 
is  measured  by  the  number  of  syllables  between 
accents;  but  in  verse  that  is  at  all  flexible  this 
number  is  constantly  changing.  If  this  were  the 
basis  of  metre,  then  there  could  be  no  constant 
quantity  in  the  verse  and  no  real  unit  of  measure- 
ment. For  example,  in  the  lines  of  Tennyson 
quoted  above,  if  the  reader  attempts  to  divide  the 
line  into  feet  by  the  number  of  syllables  between 
accents,  he  can  find  no  uniform  measure  at  all, 
because  the  feet  are  not  measured  by  number  of 
syllables  but  by  time  of  utterance.  In  any  good 
verse  the  intervals  of  time  between  successive  ac- 
cents will  be  found  to  be  approximately  the  same : 
the  number  of  syllables  will  vary  from  none  at  all 
—  a  pause  the  length  of  a  measure  —  to  four,  the 
greatest  number  that  can  be  easily  pronounced 
without  repeating  the  accent.  Usually,  indeed, 
the  number  of  syllables  does  not  change  constantly, 
but  one  arrangement  predominates  throughout  the 
poem.  Yet  in  poetry  as  in  music  —  though  of 
course  to  a  lesser  degree — variety  demands  fre- 
quent change  in  the  number  of   syllables  in  the 


252    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

measure.  A  long  passage  in  which  the  feet  should 
all  contain  an  unvarying  number  of  syllables,  the 
accent  falling  each  time  in  the  same  place,  would 
be  insufferably  monotonous.  Exquisite  mastery  of 
metrical  effects  is  always  shown,  not  by  slavish 
adherence  to  any  fixed  syllabic  scheme,  but  by 
almost  infinite  variety  of  arrangement,  in  subjec- 
tion to  the  underlying  law  of  quantity.  In  poetry, 
as  in  music,  we  have  rests  or  pauses ;  triplets,  J  J  *, 
or  three  syllables  uttered  in  the  time  of  two ;  - — " 
syncopation,  or  a  note  slightly  shortened  or  length- 
ened at  the  expense  of  a  following  one  (j  J  #  or 
J  j  instead  of  J  j)  and  manifold  other  varia- 
tions of  movement,  all  governed  by  the  law  of  the 
measure.  Many  a  lovely  line,  if  scanned  by  the  old 
rule  of  thumb,  is  an  insoluble  metrical  puzzle ;  but 
read  as  our  instinctive  sense  of  rhythm  dictates,  it 
falls  at  once  into  exact  and  melodious  measure. 
Try,  for  example,  to  read  this  most  beautiful  line 
in  accordance  with  any  syllabic  scheme  of  feet,  and 
it  is  unreadable :  — 

41  Quench' d  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  watery  moon." 

Read  it  in  its  context,  without  thought  of  scansion, 
and  it  naturally  takes  this  exact  and  beautiful 
form :  — 

Different  readers  may,  indeed,  give  a  somewhat 
different  rhythm  to  any  passage,  just  as  different 


POETRY  253 

singers  would  give  a  different  rate  to  a  musical 
passage  without  violating  the  fundamental  law  of 
time.  Such  variations  will  depend  upon  the  taste 
or  feeling  of  the  individual  reader.  Thus  the 
above  line  from  Shakspere  might  be  read  thus :  — 

The  lines  from  Tennyson  quoted  above :  — 

"Break,  break,  break, 
On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  0  sea  !  " 

and  noted :  — 

J  xlj  *U  XI7JJIJ  JU.J.I 

Mr.  Lanier  would  read  thus :  — 

A  rendering  which  gives,  it  will  be  noticed,  a 
slightly  different  movement  to  the  second  line. 
But  all  these  different  readings  alike  obey  the  law 
of  quantity  which  requires  the  same  time  in  all 
feet.  The  variety  is  in  number  and  arrangement 
of  syllables  and  pauses  or  rests;  the  unity  is  in 
time  between  accents.  All  great  masters  of  the 
metrical  art,  Coleridge,1  Shelley,  Tennyson,  Swin- 

1  Coleridge,  in  the  introductory  note  to  his  Christabel,  seems, 
oddly  enough,  to  have  supposed  that  he  had  discovered  a  "new 
principle,  namely,  that  of  counting  in  each  line  the  accents,  not 
the  syllables.  Though  the  latter  may  vary  from  seven  to  twelve 
yet  in  each  line  the  accents  will  be  found  to  be  only  four."  In 
reality  Coleridge  was  doing  only  what  poets  have  always  done. 
He  was  simply  writing  a  verse  of  four  feet  with  a  little  more 
than  the  usual  amount  of  syllabic  variety. 


254    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

burne,  will  afford  examples  on  almost  every  page 
of  the  wonderful  range  of  effects  and  the  subtle 
correspondences  of  movement  to  sentiment  that 
can  be  obtained  by  this  variation  of  syllable  and 
pause  within  the  bond  of  quantity.  Notice  in  this 
familiar  stanza  from  Tennyson  —  which,  indeed, 
illustrates  almost  all  metrical  felicities  —  what 
delightful  variation  of  movement  is  produced  by 
varying  the  number  of  syllables  between  accents. 

"  Sweet  and  low,  sweet  and  low, 

Wind  of  the  western  sea  ; 
Low,  low,  breathe  and  blow, 

Wind  of  the  western  sea. 
Over  the  rolling  waters  go, 
Come  from  the  dying  moon  and  blow, 

Blow  him  again  to  me  ; 
While  my  little  one,  while  my  pretty  one,  sleeps." 

Sometimes  these  variations  in  quantity  serve 
rather  to  emphasize  some  special  meaning  than  to 
enhance  the  beauty  of  a  passage.  This  is  especially 
the  case  in  dramatic  verse.  Thus  when  Ophelia 
tells  her  father  that  Hamlet  has  given  warrant  to 
his  love  for  her  by  "  almost  all  the  holy  vows  of 
heaven,"  Polonius  answers  derisively :  — 

"  Ay,  springes  to  catch  woodcocks.    I  do  know, 
When  the  blood  burns,  how  prodigal  the  soul 
Sends  the  tongue  vows  ;  these  blazes,  daughter, 

You  must  not  take  for  fire.1' 
Here  the  one  word  voids  is  contemptuously  pro- 


POETKY  255 

longed  in  utterance  to  occupy  the  time  of  a  whole 
measure. 

As  to  the  effect  of  the  various  forms  of  measure, 
it  is  difficult  to  give  any  general  rule  more  definite 
than  the  obvious  one,  that  the  more  syllables  or 
distinct  impulses  of  utterance  crowded  into  one 
unit  of  time,  the  more  marked  is  the  sense  of 
rapidity;  the  more  short  syllables,  the  quicker 
the  movement.  The  trisyllabic  verses,  therefore, 
in  general  are  lighter  than  the  dissyllabic,  and 
better  suited  to  less  serious  or  weighty  matters. 
At  the  same  time,  they  are  farther  removed  from 
the  unmeasured  rhythm  of  prose,  and  are  therefore 
more  likely  to  suggest  art  and  conscious  elabora- 
tion ;  they  do  not  seem  spontaneous  unless  the 
feeling  they  express  is  very  vivacious.  The  ab- 
surd effect  of  such  metres  with  serious  themes  is 
occasionally  seen  in  a  hymn :  — 

"  How  tedious  and  tasteless  the  hours 
When  Jesus  no  longer  I  see. 
Sweet  prospects,  sweet  birds,  and  sweet  flowers 
Have  all  lost  their  sweetness  to  me." 

A  movement  which  suggests  Sir  Toby's  resolve  to 
"go  to  church  in  a  galliard  and  come  home  in  a 
coranto." 

On  the  other  hand,  crowded  measures  express 
all  sorts  of  animation ;  heroic,  as  in  Byron's,  — 

"  Warriors  and  chiefs,  should  the  shaft  or  the  sword 
Pierce  me  in  leading  the  hosts  of  the  Lord  ; " 


256    PRINCIPLES  OF   LITERARY  CRITICISM 

or  graceful,  as  in  Shelley's,  — 

"That  orbed  maiden,  with  white  fire  laden, 
Whom  mortals  call  the  moon, 
Glides  glimmering  o'er  my  fleece-like  floor, 
By  the  midnight  breezes  strewn ;  " 

or  humorous,  as  in  Burns's,  — 

"  He  hums  and  he  hankers,  he  frets  and  he  cankera, 
I  never  can  please  him,  do  a'  that  I  can  : 
He's  peevish  and  jealous  of  a'  the  young  fellows  — 
O  dool  on  the  day,  I  met  wi'  an  auld  man  ! " 

It  is,  of  course,  evident  that  the  habitual  dignity  of 
Dryden's  verse,  or  the  solemn  organ-like  effects  of 
Milton's,  would  be  quite  impossible  with  such  a 
metrical  movement  as  this.  And  in  all  these  cases 
the  variation  in  the  emotional  effect  of  the  line 
depends,  not  solely,  but  principally,  upon  quantity, 
that  is  upon  the  number  of  vocal  impulses  within 
an  unvarying  unit  of  time. 

Accent,  the  second  element  of  verse,  is  by  most 
writers  on  prosody  accounted  the  basis  on  which 
the  whole  system  of  English  versification  rests. 
But  this  would  seem  hardly  an  accurate  statement, 
since  the  accent  serves  only  to  mark  for  the  ear 
those  equal  intervals  of  time  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  are  the  units  of  poetic  measurement.  It  is 
common  to  say  that  a  foot  in  English  verse  is 
made  up  of  one  accented  syllable  combined  with 
either  one  or  two  unaccented,  and  to  classify  these 
feet  by  the  relative  position  of  the  accented  and 
unaccented  syllables.      Thus  if  we  represent   the 


POETRY  257 

accented  syllable  by  a  and  the  unaccented  by  x, 
the  various  feet  are  as  follows:  Iambic,  xa;  Tro- 
chaic, ax;  Dactylic,  axx;  Anapaestic,  xxa.  But 
this  grouping  is  not  very  important.  Usually,  it 
is  true,  one  or  another  of  these  feet  will  predomi- 
nate throughout  a  poem;  yet  they  are  constantly 
interchanged  to  secure  special  effects.  Thus  in  this 
iambic  line  the  first  foot  is  made  a  trochee  to  sug- 
gest a  leaping  start,  — 

"  Gallop  apace,  ye  fiery-footed  steeds  !  " 

Thousands  of  such  changes  may  be  gathered 
from  Shakspere's  verse  or  any  other  that  is  at  all 
flexible,  and  with  infinite  variety  of  effect.  In  a 
word,  if  the  verse  be  really  living  and  not  me- 
chanical, its  movement  will  be  decided  at  every 
instant  by  its  emotion,  and  will  never,  for  twenty 
lines  together,  fit  into  any  rigid  syllabic  scheme. 
Moreover,  the  same  passage  may  often  be  consid- 
ered indifferently  iambic  or  trochaic,  dactylic  or 
anapaestic.  Thus  the  line  just  quoted  might  be 
scanned  as  trochaic,  beginning  with  a  dactyl. 

It  is  usually  said  that  we  have  no  spondaic  foot 
in  English  verse,  that  is,  no  two  consecutive 
syllables  under  equal  accent.  We  do  not  have  it 
regularly,  but  we  certainly  do  occasionally  get  the 
effect  of  the  spondee.  In  the  line  from  the  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  already  twice  quoted,  — 

"  Quench'd  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  watery  moon," 

the   two  words  chaste   beams  are  under   equal   ac- 


258    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

cent  and  are  alike  in  quantity.  Or  notice  the 
third  line  of  this  familiar  and  beautiful  quatrain 
from  Wordsworth :  — 

"  Will  no  one  tell  me  what  she  sings  ? 
Perhaps  the  plaintive  numbers  flow 
For  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things, 
And  battles  long  ago." 

Every  one  who  is  not  trying  to  stretch  this  line 
upon  the  rack  of  some  fixed  syllabic  scansion, 
would  naturally  read  it  thus:  — 

"  For  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things," 

/J.  I  J  J  J  I  J  J  IJ.i  I 

when  the  third  foot  is  a  genuine  spondee. 

Of  course  every  word  in  English  of  more  than 
one  syllable  has  a  special  accent  fixed  by  conven- 
tion upon  a  certain  syllable.  In  verse  this  verbal 
accent  must  coincide  with  the  metrical  accent, 
that  is,  the  metre  must  never  oblige  us  to  throw 
accent  upon  a  syllable  which  would  not  be  accented 
in  prose.  It  is  always  a  fault  when  we  are  tempted 
to  do  so.  Besides  this  verbal  accent,  there  is  also 
the  logical  accent,  that  is,  the  stress  naturally 
given  to  some  chief  words  in  a  sentence  because 
of  their  importance  in  meaning.  This  importance 
is  indicated  in  part  —  as  will  be  noticed  in  a  later 
paragraph  —  by  a  change  in  pitch,  but  in  part, 
also,  by  increased  accent.     And  this  logical  accent 


POETRY  259 

also  must  coincide  with  the  metrical  accent,  no 
important  words  being  placed  where  they  cannot 
take  metrical  accent.  There  are  therefore  two 
degrees  of  accent  in  any  verse,  —  one  upon  those 
syllables  that  have  only  the  metrical  accent,  the 
other  and  stronger  on  those  that  have  both  the 
metrical  and  the  logical.  The  distribution  of  these 
heavy  accents  usually  determines  the  position  of 
the  pauses  in  verse,  and  so  divides  poetry  into 
phrases,  very  much  as  music  is  divided. 

Wordsworth's  stanza,  for  example,  falls  into 
phrases  thus,  the  words  having  heavy  accent  being 
italicized :  — 

"  Will  no  one  tell  me  I  what  she  sings  ?  | 
Perhaps  |  the  plaintive  numbers  flow 
For  old,  |  unhappy,  \  far-off  things,  | 
And  battles  |  long  ago." 

In  the  subtle  adjustment  of  accent  and  pause  to 
suit  at  once  the  meaning  and  the  music  of  his 
verse,  there  is  room  for  all  the  nicest  art  of  the 
poet. 

The  third  element  of  verse,  pitch,  is  more  promi- 
nent and  relatively  more  important  in  music  than 
in  poetry.  And  yet  hardly  so.  For  pitch  in 
poetry  is  what  we  call  inflection,  upon  which  the 
charm  of  poetry  for  the  ear  very  largely  depends. 
How  largely,  we  may  see  at  once  by  reading  any 
beautiful  passage  of  poetry  in  a  dead  monotone, 
preserving  perfectly  its  movement  and  accent,  but 
keeping  the  voice  on  the  same  note  throughout. 


260     PRINCIPLES    OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

Try  it,  for   example,   with  the   touching   lines  of 

Viola:  — 

"She  never  told  her  love, 
But  let  concealment,  like  a  worm  i'  the  bud, 
Feed  on  her  damask  cheek  :  she  pined  in  thought, 
And  with  a  green  and  yellow  melancholy, 
She  sat  like  patience  on  a  monument, 
Smiling  at  grief." 

Kead   thus,   the    most   exquisite    poetry  becomes 
intolerable. 

In  truth  the  principal  difference  between  sing- 
ing and  reading  seems  to  be  that  in  singing  the 
voice  is  carried  over  a  greater  range  of  notes,  and 
the  intervals  between  the  notes  struck,  being  wider, 
can  be  accurately  indicated  by  a  system  of  musical 
notation.  In  reading,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
voice  passes  over  only  a  small  part  of  one  octave, 
but  it  slides  through  much  finer  gradations  of  pitch 
than  can  be  designated  by  the  notes  of  the  musical 
scale.  There  are,  in  fact,  a  practically  infinite 
number  of  gradations  of  tone  between  D  sharp 
and  E  flat,  for  instance,  and  many  that  the  ear  can 
catch  and  enjoy.  But  they  cannot  be  notated. 
The  poet,  therefore,  cannot  designate  how  the  pitch 
of  the  reader's  voice  should  change  from  syllable 
to  syllable  —  cannot,  in  a  word,  write  the  tune  of 
his  verse.  Yet  there  is  a  tune  in  every  passage  of 
real  poetry,  though  perhaps  no  two  readers  might 
give  exactly  the  same  one.  And  the  beauty  of 
verse  is  determined  very  largely  by  this  tune,  that 
is,  by  the  way  the  meaning  or  feeling  of  the  pas- 


POETRY  261 

sage  naturally  suggests  such  varying  inflection  as 
shall  be  musical.  This  we  call,  strictly,  the  melody 
of  verse,  as  distinguished  from  the  movement,  em- 
phasis, or  tone-color.  Poets  differ  very  widely  in 
their  power  to  produce  effects  of  genuine  melody. 
The  master  knows  how  so  to  modulate  his  verse 
as  to  suggest  inevitably  to  any  intelligent  reader 
substantially  the  same  music  that  sang  in  his  own 
imagination.  As  a  rule,  any  unusual  or  elaborate 
form  of  stanza  is  adopted  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
ducing unmistakable  effects  of  melody.  This  lyric 
from  Herrick,  for  example,  with  its  broken  and 
delaying  rhythm,  its  soft,  lingering  cadences,  is  a 
delightful  bit  of  music :  — 

"  Fair  daffodils,  we  weep  to  see 
You  haste  away  so  soon  ; 
As  yet  the  early  rising  sun 
Has  not  attained  his  noon. 

Stay,  stay, 
Until  the  hasting  day 

Has  run 
But  to  the  even-song, 
And  having  pray'd  together,  we 
Will  go  with  you  along. 

We  have  short  time  to  stay,  as  you, 

We  have  as  short  a  spring  ; 
As  quick  a  growth  to  meet  decay, 

As  you,  or  anything. 
We  die, 

As  your  hours  do,  and  dry 
Away, 

Like  to  the  summer  rain, 
Or  as  the  pearls  of  morning's  dew, 

Ne'er  to  be  found  again." 


262    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

On  the  other  hand,  a  poem  expressing  antithetic 
or  epigrammatic  truth  in  formal  phrase,  like  much 
of  Pope's,  can  have  little  melodic  charm,  and  inev- 
itably tends  to  run  into  monotony.  Indeed,  it  is 
curious  to  note  how  deficient  in  the  sense  of  melody 
are  nearly  all  English  writers  throughout  the  first 
three  quarters  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Of  course,  however,  no  poet  can  do  more  than 
suggest  the  tune  of  his  verse,  and  much  must  there- 
fore be  left  to  the  taste  of  the  individual  reader. 
That  is  why  it  is  such  a  rare  pleasure  to  hear  poetry 
well  read  —  not  by  one  who  exaggerates  all  musical 
effects,  as  the  professional  elocutionist  is  prone  to 
do,  but  by  one  who  can  render  them  with  natural- 
ness and  delicacy.  And  that,  too,  is  one  reason 
why  the  careful  and  sympathetic  reading  of  poetry 
aloud  is  such  a  profitable  exercise  in  appreciation. 

The  last  of  the  elements  combining  to  produce 
the  charm  of  poetic  form  is  quality  or  tone-color. 
These  terms  —  which  correspond  to  what  is  called 
in  music  timbre  —  may  be  used  to  designate  all 
those  peculiarities  of  poetic  utterance  not  included 
under  time,  accent,  or  pitch.  For  instance,  just  as 
the  same  note  in  the  musical  scale  sounds  very  dif- 
ferent on  the  violin  from  what  it  does  on  the  piano, 
so  the  long  vowel  a  has  a  very  different  sound  from 
the  long  vowel  e,  though  both  are  at  the  same 
pitch ;  both  vowels  are  very  different  from  the  con- 
sonants ;  a  labial  or  lingual  consonant,  very  different 
from  a  guttural.    Now  all  the  poetic  effects  produced 


POETRY  263 

by  skillful  variation,  contrast,  or  correspondence  of 
these  different  peculiarities  of  sound,  we  may  call 
effects  of  quality  or  tone-color.  These  effects  are 
legion,  and  for  the  most  part  too  various  to  be  re- 
duced to  definite  rule.  Some,  however,  are  definite 
enough  to  be  described  and  classified.  Of  these 
the  most  important  and  familiar  is  rhyme.  The 
simple  rule  for  rhyme  in  English  is  that  rhyming 
syllables  must  have  their  initial  consonants  differ- 
ent, and  all  sounds  after  these  initial  consonants 
alike. 

Rhyme  has  an  absolute  charm  for  the  ear ;  it  is 
pleasant  in  itself.  It  serves  also  to  mark  off  for 
the  ear  groups  of  feet  into  lines  or  verses,  and  thus 
increases  that  effect  of  rhythm  which  is  natural  to 
all  impassioned  utterance.  Rhyme  inevitably  em- 
phasizes in  meaning  somewhat  the  words  on  which 
it  falls,  and  so  ought  never  —  save  for  humorous 
effect — to  fall  on  unimportant  words.  Moreover,  in 
a  couplet,  the  force  of  the  second  rhyming  word  is 
usually  a  little  stronger  than  that  of  the  first,  and 
therefore  that  word  should  be  the  more  important 
in  meaning.  Pope,  our  greatest  master  of  the  for- 
mal couplet,  will  be  found  to  observe  these  rules. 
Double  or  dissyllabic  rhymes  serve  to  emphasize 
still  more  the  words  on  which  they  fall,  and  some- 
times by  prolonging  the  rhyme  give  to  the  line  a 
delaying  grace  of  movement;  but  usually  their 
obviously  artificial  character  unfits  them  for  use  in 
serious  verse.     In  humorous  or  satiric  poetry,  how- 


264     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

ever,  double  rhymes  and  even  rhymes  of  three  or 
four  syllables  are  often  employed  with  striking 
effect ;  they  afford  opportunity  for  oddities  of  em- 
phasis and  give  the  pleasant  shock  of  surprise 
always  excited  by  difficulties  ingeniously  overcome. 
Byron's  Don  Juan  is  full  of  such  rhymes,  of  which 
this  oft-quoted  tour  de  force  may  suffice  as  an 
example :  — 

"But  —  oh  !  ye  lords  of  ladies  intellectual, 
Inform  us  truly,  have  they  not  hen-pecked  you  all  ?" 

Browning  had  a  marvellous  mastery  of  these 
ingenuities ;  but  he  always  employed  them  —  as  in 
Old  Pictures  in  Florence,  A  Grammarian1  s  Funeral, 
The  Flight  of  the  Duchess — to  express  some  quaint 
or  freakish  humor.  The  derisive  address  to  his 
critics,  in  the  closing  sections  of  Pachiarotto,  fairly 
revels  in  seeming  impossibilities  of  rhyme :  — 

"  Here  shall  my  whistling  and  singing 
Set  all  his  street's  echoes  a-ringing, 
Long  after  the  last  of  your  number 
Has  ceased  my  front  court  to  encumber, 
While,  treading  down  rose  and  ranunculus, 
You  Tommy-make-room-for-yonr-uncle  us ! 
Troop,  all  of  you  —  man  or  homunculus, 
Quick  march  !     For  Xantippe,  my  housemaid, 
If  once  on  your  pates  she  a  souse  made 
With  what,  pan  or  pot,  bowl  or  skoramis 
First  comes  to  her  hand  —  things  were  more  amiss  ! 
I  wouldn't  for  worlds  be  your  place  in  — 
Recipient  of  slops  from  the  basin  ! 
You,  Jack-in-the-green,  leaf-and-twiggishness 
Won't  save  a  dry  thread  on  your  priggishness  1 


POETRY  265 

While  as  for  Quilp-Hop-o'-my-thumb  there, 
Banjo-Byron  that  twangs  the  strum-strum  there  — 
He'll  think  as  the  pickle  he  curses 
I've  discharged  on  his  pate  his  own  verses  ! " 

Rhyme  intensifies  the  effect  of  rhythm  that,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  natural  to  all  heightened  or  impas- 
sioned feeling.  Hence  rhyme  is  an  appropriate 
form,  not  only  for  the  more  animated  or  tuneful 
lyric,  but  for  all  verse  which  is  the  immediate  ut- 
terance of  strong  emotion ;  on  the  other  hand,  that 
grave,  reflective  poetry,  which  stirs  the  emotions 
by  the  presentation  of  impressive  truth,  will  usu- 
ally best  find  expression  in  blank  verse.  In  such 
poetry  rhyme  seems  not  demanded  by  any  inten- 
sity or  eagerness  of  feeling ;  and  it  is  open  to  the 
further  objection  that  it  is  liable  to  check  the  con- 
secutiveness  of  the  poet's  thought.  Dryden,  it  is 
true,  succeeded  in  writing  masterpieces  of  argu- 
mentative verse  in  the  heroic  couplet,  but  hardly 
any  one  else  has.  And  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  Dryden's  most  impressive  passages  of  re- 
flection are  not  to  be  found  in  his  blank-verse 
dramas.  Pope's  success  with  the  couplet  in  didac- 
tic verse  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  never  had 
any  consecutive  thought  to  express.  Thinking  in 
jets,  he  naturally  wrote  in  couplets,  and  his  verse 
falls  apart  into  brilliant  epigrams  and  maxims. 
Similarly,  narrative  or  epic  poetry,  in  which  the 
emotion,  though  commanding,  must  be  sustained 
and  continuous,  naturally  falls  into   blank  verse. 


266     PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

And  for  the  drama,  which  must  suggest  the  flexi- 
bility and  naturalness  of  actual  conversation,  it 
would  seem  still  more  evident  that  blank  verse  is  a 
better  vehicle  than  rhyme. 

Blank  verse  is  undoubtedly  the  most  difficult  of 
metrical  forms.  For  it  is  not  to  be  thought  of 
merely  as  prose,  with  the  accent  on  alternate  syl- 
lables, and  broken  into  lines  of  uniform  length. 
On  the  contrary,  blank  verse  admits  all  the  ele- 
ments of  metre  except  rhyme ;  and  the  absence 
of  that  demands  all  the  more  careful  attention  to 
quantity,  movement,  pause,  melody,  and  the  subtle 
charm  of  music.  Good  blank  verse,  therefore,  re- 
quires of  the  poet  not  only  a  sustained  elevation  of 
feeling,  but  the  nicest  mastery  of  his  art.  Hardly 
more  than  a  half  dozen  English  poets  in  the  last 
two  centuries  have  attained  to  any  eminent  com- 
mand of  it. 

When  the  poets  have  wished  to  combine  the 
keenness  of  emotion,  that  best  expresses  itself 
in  rhyme,  with  the  continuity  of  thought  or  of 
narrative  that  demands  blank  verse,  they  have 
often  had  recourse  to  some  form  of  stanza  in 
which  they  might  secure  the  musical  charm  of 
rhyme,  while  at  the  same  time  reducing  to  a 
minimum  its  interrupting  emphasis.  There  could 
hardly  be  a  better  example  of  this  than  Ten- 
nyson's In  Memoriam.  This  is  a  poem  suffused 
with  the  deepest  emotion,  yet  concerned  largely 
with  the  most  difficult  problems  that  confront  the 


POETRY  267 

thought  of  our  age.  Tennyson  was  to  render  in  the 
In  Memoriam  his  own  message  upon  the  deepest 
truths  that  man  may  meditate ;  while  yet  he  could 
not  suffer  his  poem  to  fall  for  a  moment  into  the 
tone  of  cold  discussion.  He  adopts  a  simple,  yet 
really  subtle,  metrical  arrangement.  He  writes 
in  four-line  rhyming  stanzas ;  but  if,  as  is  usual  in 
the  quatrain,  the  lines  had  rhymed  alternately  for 
near  half  a  thousand  stanzas,  the  result  would  have 
been  an  intolerable  monotony  of  sing-song.  By 
making  the  first  line  rhyme  with  the  fourth,  and 
the  second  with  the  third,  the  metrical  effect  is  at 
once  entirely  changed.  The  stanza  now  preserves 
the  music  and  the  pathos  of  rhyme,  and  yet  the 
rhyme  is  not  insistent  or  wearisome.  How  grace- 
fully successive  stanzas  of  this  form  may  be  linked 
together  in  continuous  narrative  or  reflection  is  well 
shown  in  that  lovely  section,  number  eighty-five, 
descriptive  of  the  sunset  wind  that  follows  show- 
ers, slowly  rolling  backward  the  volumed  clouds 
till  all  the  round  of  heaven  is  clear,  from  the  glow- 
ing western  twilight  to  the  peaceful,  orient  star :  — 

"  Sweet  after  showers,  ambrosial  air, 
That  rollest  from  the  gorgeous  gloom 
Of  evening  over  brake  and  bloom 
And  meadow,  slowly  breathing  bare 

The  round  of  space,  and  rapt  below 
Through  all  the  dewy-tasselled  wood, 
And  shadowing  down  the  horned  flood 

In  ripples,  fan  my  brow  and  blow 


268     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

The  fever  from  my  cheek,  and  sigh 
The  full,  new  life  that  feeds  thy  breath 
Throughout  my  frame,  till  Doubt  and  Death, 

111  brothers,  let  the  fancy  fly 

From  belt  to  belt  of  crimson  seas, 

On  leagues  of  odor  streaming  far, 

To  where  in  yonder  orient  star 
A  hundred  spirits  whisper  'Peace.'  " 

The  second  of  what  we  may  terra  peculiarities 
of  quality  is  Alliteration.  Alliteration  is  the  repe- 
tition of  a  consonant,  usually  the  initial  consonant 
of  a  syllable,  at  short  intervals.  These  alliterated 
syllables,  as  a  rule,  are  those  which  bear  the  met- 
rical accent.  The  regular  method  of  marking 
rhythm  in  Old  English  poetry,  alliteration  is  at 
present  only  a  secondary  and  incidental  charm  of 
verse.  If  conscious  or  obtrusive,  it  is  likely  to 
offend  as  artificial ;  but  irregular,  spontaneous,  and 
largely  disguised,  it  lends  a  grace  which,  though 
often  unrecognized,  would  be  missed  if  absent.  It 
often  serves,  moreover,  to  add  a  slight  emphasis  to 
important  words,  and  to  accentuate  the  division 
of  a  passage  into  phrases.  All  our  most  finished 
modern  verse  is  veined  with  it  throughout.  Tenny- 
son, perhaps  our  greatest  master  of  all  niceties  of 
the  poet's  art,  will  furnish  exquisite  examples  on 
almost  every  page. 

"  Night  slid  down  one  long  stream  of  sighing  wind, 
And  in  her  bosom  bore  the  baby  sleep." 

"  The  twinkling  laurel  scattered  silver  lights." 


POETRY  269 

"  A  land  where  all  things  always  seemed  the  same ! 
And  round  about  the  keel  with  faces  pale, 
Dark  faces  pale  against  that  rosy  flame, 
The  mild-eyed,  melancholy  Lotos- eaters  came." 

"  A  league  of  grass,  wash'd  by  a  slow,  broad  stream, 
That  stirr'd  with  languid  pulses  of  the  oar, 
Waves  all  its  lazy  lilies  and  creeps  on." 

"  Love  took  up  the  harp  of  Life  and  smote  on  all  the  chords 
with  might ; 
Smote  the  chord  of  Self,  that,  trembling,  pass'd  in  music 
out  of  sight." 

"  Sunset,  and  evening  star, 
And  one  clear  call  for  me  ! 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar, 
When  I  put  out  to  sea." 

But  even  more  important,  though  more  difficult 
to  classify,  are  the  metrical  effects  produced  by 
the  nice  alternation  and  adaptation  of  vowel  sounds. 
The  poet  with  a  fine  sense  of  the  music  of  verse 
will  not  only  avoid  the  monotonous  recurrence  of 
the  same  vowel  sound  and  secure  such  alternations 
as  are  melodious,  but  he  will  subtly  adapt  the  tone- 
color  of  his  vowels  to  his  meaning.  For  this  is 
quite  possible.  The  literal  imitation  of  sounds  by 
language  is  called  onomatopoeia,  and  is  common  in 
vivid  description,  when  the  poet's  intense  imagina- 
tion unconsciously  constrains  the  phrase  to  echo 
his  meaning.  Thus,  in  these  lines  which  describe 
Sir  Bedivere  bearing  the  dying  Arthur  up  the 
steep,  the  verse  climbs  over  rough  consonants  and 
pants  in  monosyllables  till  the  summit  is  reached, 


270    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

when  the  broad  water  opens  suddenly  upon  the 
sight :  — 

"  Dry  clash'd  his  harness  in  the  icy  caves 
And  barren  chasms,  and  all  to  left  and  right 
The  bare,  black  cliff  clang'd  round  him,  as  he  based 
His  feet  on  juts  of  slippery  crag  that  rang 
Sharp-smitten  with  the  dint  of  armed  heels  — 
And  on  a  sudden,  lo  !  the  level  lake, 
And  the  long  glories  of  the  winter  moon." 

But  there  is  a  higher  and  finer  kind  of  onomato- 
poeia where  the  verse  makes  no  attempt  at  literal 
imitation,  but  rather  suggests  by  analogies  of  sound 
and  movement  sentiment  and  moral  quality.  Now 
in  this  subtler  adaptation  of  sound  to  meaning  the 
vowels  play  the  most  prominent  part.  For  there 
seems  to  be  a  certain  natural  suggestiveness  in  the 
vowel  sounds  which  makes  them  the  soul  of  poetic 
utterance.  Thus  the  broad,  open  vowels,  as  com- 
pared with  the  short,  close  ones,  demand  a  greater 
volume  of  sound ;  they  are  more  naturally  pro- 
longed, and  so  affect  the  quantity  of  the  verse ;  and, 
what  is  most  important  of  all,  they  are  instinctively 
uttered  at  a  lower  pitch,  and  so  affect  the  melody 
or  tune  of  the  verse.  For  all  three  of  these  rea- 
sons, and  perhaps  for  others  not  so  obvious,  the 
broad  and  open  vowels  seem  fitted  to  express  not 
only  wide  reaches  of  space  or  time,  but  also  noble, 
solemn,  or  imposing  conceptions.  Smaller  truths, 
daintier  fancy,  lighter  and  livelier  movement,  on 
the  other  hand,  find  echo  in  the  short  and  close 


POETRY  271 

vowel  sounds.  Notice  how,  in  these  lines  from 
Tennyson's  Ulysses,  the  broad  vowels  combine 
with  the  delaying  liquids  and  labials  and  the  skill- 
fully lengthened  pauses  to  give  the  effect  of  sol- 
emn, boding  calm,  — 

' '  The  long  day  wanes  ;  the  slow  moon  climbs  ;  the  deep 
Moans  round  with  many  voices." 

Contrast  with  this  the  shimmering  silence  of  that 
dell  through  which  breaks  the  voice  of  Jephthah's 
daughter,  — 

11  All  night  the  splintered  crags  that  wall  the  dell 
With  spires  of  silver  shine." 

In  Keats's  famous  line  from  the  Eve  of  St.  Agnes, 
it  is  the  vowels  quite  as  much  as  the  consonants 
that  make  us  instinctively  purse  our  lips  to  sip 

the  — 

"Lucent  syrops  tinct  with  cinnamon." 

For  opposite  vowel  effect  take  these  wonderful  lines 
from  his  La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci,  — 

"  I  saw  their  starved  lips  in  the  gloam 
With  horrid  warning  gaped  wide." 

We  unconsciously  strive  to  adapt  the  tone  of  our 
speech  to  the  tone  of  our  thought,  in  small  matters 
or  in  great.     King  Richard  cries,  — 

"  Not  all  the  water  in  the  rough,  rude  sea 
Can  wash  the  balm  from  an  anointed  king  fn 

and  Shallow  calls  to  the  tavern  waiter  to  bring 
him,  "  A  joint  of  mutton,  and  any  pretty,  little,  tiny 


272    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

kickshaws  I "      Human  speech  even  at  its  best  is, 

indeed,  too  poor  and  crude  an  instrument  for  any 

perfect  harmony  of  this  kind  between  sound  and 

sentiment.      But  though  we  may  never  hope  to 

set  — 

"  Perfect  music  unto  noble  words," 

yet  the  poet  by  delicate  felicities  of  tone,  by  a 
thousand  suggestions  of  melody  and  movement, 
never  to  be  explained  or  classified,  may  approxi- 
mate indefinitely  to  that  ideal,  and  intensify  the 
meaning  of  his  lines  by  all  the  keener,  more  ele- 
mental significance  of  music.  This  harmony  may 
best  be  observed  in  somewhat  extended  passages 
or  in  complete  poems,  where  the  sentiment,  in 
ways  that  can  be  felt  but  not  described,  determines 
at  every  point  the  melody  or  tune  of  the  verse. 
To  illustrate  it  here  would  therefore  be  too  long ; 
but  consider,  as  brief  examples,  what  wonderful 
magic  of  blended  thought,  image,  and  melody  in 
such  lines  as  these  :  — 

"  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting  : 
The  Soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  Star, 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar  : 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God  who  is  our  home  !  " 


or, 


"  The  cloud-capt  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea  all  which  it  inherits  shall  dissolve, 


POETRY  273 

And,  like  this  unsubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind.     We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on  ;  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep." 

Doubtless  the  mental  processes  which  shape  lan- 
guage into  such  wonderful  harmony  are  largely 
subconscious.  The  poet  himself  might  not  be  able 
to  explain  them.  He  certainly  cannot  hold  con- 
stantly before  his  thought  a  set  of  formulated  prin- 
ciples to  guide  his  utterance;  if  he  should,  his 
work  would  be  sure  to  prove  mechanical.  Yet  if 
he  have  the  gift  of  poetic  utterance,  his  verse  will 
be  seen  to  exemplify  such  principles.  For  it  is 
just  as  true  in  poetry  as  in  music,  that  certain  ef- 
fects of  movement,  melody,  and  tone  have  definite 
relations  with  our  emotions ;  and  the  delicate  cor- 
respondence, however  secured,  between  the  senti- 
ment of  any  poem  and  these  effects  of  movement, 
melody,  and  tone,  affords  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able examples  of  the  power  of  art  to  combine  great 
variety  of  means  into  a  unity  of  result. 

The  scope  of  this  book  hardly  permits  any  ex- 
tended discussion  of  the  various  kinds  of  poetry, 
—  epic,  lyric,  dramatic.  These  distinctions,  indeed, 
are  not  very  precise  or  mutually  exclusive.  Much 
poetry,  satiric  or  reflective,  for  example,  seems  not 
to  fall  in  either  of  these  three  divisions.  Yet, 
broadly  speaking,  they  serve  to  classify  poetry 
on  the  one  great  principle  of  the  relation  of  the 
subject  to  the  singer.      Objective  poetry  is  epic ; 


274    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

subjective  poetry  is  lyric ;  the  drama  is  objective 
poetry  in  the  subjective  manner. 

The  essential  characteristic  of  the  epic  is  that 
it  is  objective  and  narrative;  it  is  the  recital  of 
events  outside  the  singer.  Hence  it  is  logically 
and  chronologically  the  first  poetry.*  For  men 
regard  with  emotion  external  occurrences  long 
before  they  reach  the  stage  at  which  they  study 
the  emotions  within  themselves.  Emotional  obser- 
vation always  precedes  analysis.  Hence  the  earli- 
est poetry  of  any  nation  is  likely  to  be  epic.  This 
primitive  epic  is  usually  without  any  impress  of 
individual  authorship.  It  is  the  work  of  a  race 
rather  than  of  a  man.  It  grows  up  by  the  slow 
accretion  of  legend;  and  though  it  may  often 
bear  the  marks  of  the  last  and  most  strenuous 
genius  who  has  revised  it,  yet  it  is  not  in  strict- 
ness personal.  It  is  not  one  man's  view  of  life ; 
it  is  the  view  of  a  race  or  of  an  age.  And  in  its 
later  developments  epic  poetry  is  almost  sure  to 
be  retrospective.  For  the  epic  demands  large, 
heroic  action  that  can  in  some  way  be  isolated 
from  the  tangled  mass  of  minor  events  and  thrown 
up  into  perspective.  Such  isolation  it  seems  diffi- 
cult to  give  to  contemporary  action :  the  foreground 
of  events  in  our  modern  life  is  too  crowded.  More- 
over, as  the  mutual  relations  of  individuals  in  our 
modern  society  become  more  numerous  and  more 
complicated,  no  one  man  counts  for  much.  The 
days  of  the  hero  and  the  crowd  seem  to  be  over; 


POETRY  275 

it  is  the  day  of  the  equality  of  men  and  of  the 
organization  of  effort.  Taste  varies  somewhat 
from  age  to  age,  doubtless ;  heroism  and  adven- 
ture lose  their  charm  in  one  generation  only  to  find 
it  again  in  the  next.  But  the  general  movement 
of  evolution  in  society  must  make  epic  poetry 
rarer  in  these  later  days,  and  give  to  it  more  and 
more  an  antiquarian  air.  Yet  one  would  fain 
believe  that  genuine  epic  poetry  can  never  lose 
its  charm.  We  shall  have  variations  of  taste : 
now  the  historic  epic,  like  Walter  Scott's,  will  be 
preferred ;  now  the  pure  romantic  or  picturesque, 
like  that  of  William  Morris ;  but  the  fascination 
of  the  story-teller  will  never  quite  pass  away. 
There  will  always  be  readers  glad  to  turn  from 
the  complicated,  troubled,  introspective  life  of 
to-day  to  the  picture  of  a  large,  simple,  heroic 
past.  And  that  epic  will  have  the  most  during 
power  in  which  the  story  holds  us,  not  merely  by 
strangeness  of  incident  or  beauty  of  image,  —  as  in 
most  of  the  works  of  William  Morris,  Kossetti,  or 
Swinburne,  —  but  by  its  exhibition  of  the  primary 
and  universal  virtues  of  human  character  —  bravery, 
truth,  affection. 

The  lyric  is  the  most  nearly  universal  form  of 
poetry.  It  arises  very  early;  it  runs  through  all 
subsequent  stages  of  historical  development  and 
through  all  grades  of  society.  That  it  should  is 
natural,  for  it  is  the  purest,  most  typical  form  of 
poetry.      Here  the  emotional   purpose  which  dis- 


276    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

tinguishes  poetry  from  other  forms  of  composition 
is  at  its  height ;  narration  and  reflection  in  the 
pure  lyric  are  lost  in  personal  feeling.  And  this 
high  emotional  value  of  the  lyric  naturally  results 
in  giving  to  it  —  as  its  name  implies  —  a  more 
musical  form  than  any  other  variety  of  poetry 
possesses.  In  the  lyric  we  find  all  the  rarest 
witcheries  of  the  metrical  art.  Moreover,  as  the 
expression  of  individual  emotion,  it  gives  utterance 
to  feelings  as  manifold  and  varied  as  the  infinite 
possibilities  of  personality.  It  has  a  voice  for  the 
whole  gamut  of  emotion,  —  love,  fear,  joy,  doubt, 
pity,  anger,  hope,  devotion. 

In  these  latter  days  the  lyric  seems  to  be  taking 
the  place  of  all  other  varieties  of  poetry.  The 
work  of  nearly  all  the  most  eminent  poets  for  near 
a  hundred  years  —  Burns,  Wordsworth,  Shelley, 
Keats,  Tennyson,  Browning,  Arnold  —  is  largely 
lyrical  in  temper,  and  the  best  of  it  is  lyrical  in 
form.  The  epic  element  in  literature  seems  nowa- 
days mostly  confined  to  the  novel ;  we  seldom  find 
that  sustained  emotion  which  carries  a  long,  objec- 
tive composition  through  at  the  pitch  requisite  for 
poetry.  Still  less  have  we  patience  for  philosophic 
or  reflective  poetry,  unless  —  like  Tennyson's  In 
Memoriam  or  much  of  Browning's  verse  —  it  is  so 
penetrated  with  emotion  as  to  take  on  lyric  quality. 
Indeed,  the  great  poets  of  every  age,  although  the 
main  bent  of  their  genius  may  have  been  epic  or 
dramatic,  have  almost  always  felt  some  impulse  to 


POETRY  277 

the  expression  of  individual  feeling,  and  have  un- 
locked their  hearts  in  lyric  verse. 

The  drama  is  the  highest  and  most  difficult  kind 
of  poetry.  It  calls  into  exercise  a  greater  range  of 
poetic  power  than  any  other,  for  it  combines  what 
is  highest  and  most  characteristic  in  both  the  epic 
and  the  lyric.  Like  the  epic,  it  must  tell  a  story : 
it  must  select,  combine,  arrange.  The  demand  for 
unity  of  effect,  for  fine  judgment  as  to  the  deter- 
mining points  of  a  narrative,  is,  therefore,  quite  as 
imperative  in  the  drama  as  in  the  epic.  And  as 
the  story  must  be  told  in  the  words  of  the  actors 
themselves,  and  in  their  moments  of  most  impas- 
sioned action,  there  is  abundant  opportunity  for 
that  direct  expression  of  personal  feeling  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  lyric.  There  is  no  epic  more 
imposing  in  its  array  of  august  events  than  such  a 
drama  as  Lear;  while,  at  the  same  time,  there  is  no 
lyric  more  passionate,  more  powerful,  than  some 
of  the  outpourings  of  personal  emotion  in  this  or 
almost  any  one  of  Shakspere's  great  tragedies. 
Nor  are  the  higher  and  sterner  effects  the  only  ones 
of  which  the  drama  is  capable  ;  it  can  give  us  all  the 
vivacity  of  the  most  brisk  and  animated  narrative, 
all  the  grace  and  dainty  music  of  the  most  tunef  ul 
lyric.  No  form  of  literature  is  so  comprehensive 
in  its  range  of  effects,  such  a  mirror  of  the  all-inclu- 
sive life  of  man.  A  great  drama  is  a  more  wonder- 
ful exhibition  of  literary  power  than  any  other  form 
of   literature.     For   consider   what   the   man   who 


278    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

writes  a  great  drama  must  do.  He  must  conceive 
a  large  group  of  independent,  various  characters, 
and  must  conceive  them  vividly  and  intensely ;  he 
must  devise  a  great  action.  These  things,  to  be 
sure,  the  novelist  must  also  do.  But  the  dramatist 
must  develop  his  great  action  entirely  out  of  the 
influence  of  these  characters  upon  each  other,  and 
he  must  tell  it  in  their  own  words.  He  cannot 
be  allowed  a  single  syllable  of  explanation,  com- 
ment, or  analysis  in  his  own  person.  Nor  is  he  at 
liberty  to  call  upon  accident,  unforeseen  contingency, 
to  help  out  his  plot ;  all  must  be  the  outcome  of  the 
forces  of  character  embodied  in  his  persons.  Then 
he  has  but  three  hours  in  which  to  exhibit  these 
characters  and  develop  their  action;  consequently 
he  can  show  them  only  at  some  crucial  points  of  the 
story,  when  what  they  are  saying  and  doing  will 
have  an  obvious  bearing  on  the  catastrophe.  Yet 
he  must  not  make  his  play  seem  merely  a  series  of 
striking  and  critical  junctures,  or  it  will  fall  into 
melodrama;  on  the  contrary,  he  must  give  it  the 
appearance  of  being  in  the  plane  of  actual  life.  To 
that  end,  if  he  be  a  really  great  dramatist,  he  will 
be  careful  not  to  confine  himself  —  as  the  epic  poet 
does  —  to  a  few  heroic  figures  raised  above  the  level 
of  common  experience  and  isolated  from  average 
humanity.  He  will  rather  introduce  common,  dull, 
and  stupid  folk  and  poor  devils  —  as  Shakspere 
does  in  Henry  IV.  for  example  —  to  make  us  feel 
that  his  scene  is  the  real  world  we_  know,  where  all 


POETRY  279 

sorts  and  conditions  of  men  are  jostling.  Yet  to 
this  almost  infinite  variety  of  human  experience  con- 
fined in  the  little  room  of  the  three  hours'  play,  he 
must  give  some  common  direction  and  some  unity 
of  feeling,  and  he  must  lift  the  language  of  it  all 
into  poetry  without  destroying  the  verisimilitude  of 
conversation.  When  one  reflects  on  how  all  this  is 
done  in  a  great  play  by  Shakspere,  one  is  filled  with 
ever  growing  wonder  at  the  genius  that  attained 
such  supreme  success  in  so  difficult  a  field. 

Whether  we  may  ever  hope  to  see  again  a 
genuinely  great  school  of  English  drama,  may 
perhaps  be  doubtful.  Certainly  we  have  seen  little 
that  is  great  for  a  century  and  a  half.  Drama  in 
its  strictest  form  seems  not  likely  to  be  written 
unless  called  for  by  the  stage,  and  the  modern 
stage  hardly  demands  the  highest  literary  work. 
No  great  literature  will  aim  merely  to  amuse.  It 
is  too  deeply  freighted  with  thought;  its  emotion 
is  too  deep  and  serious.  There  is  perhaps  nothing 
in  the  nature  of  things  to  prevent  a  poet  from 
writing  a  really  great  drama  without  regard  to  its 
representation  upon  the  stage.  This  is  possible, 
but  it  hardly  seems  probable.  For  so  soon  as  the 
poet  forgets  that  his  piece  must  conform  to  the 
conditions  of  dramatic  representation,  he  begins  to 
be  less  concise  and  concentrated  in  expression ;  he 
expands  his  description  and  soliloquy ;  he  catches 
the  novelist's  trick  of  analysis ;  and  so  his  work 
loses   action  and  life.     Moreover,  he  is  tempted 


280    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

to  intrude  his  own  personality,  and  thus  give  his 
work  a  lyrical  and  subjective  character  which  is 
inconsistent  with  the  highest  dramatic  quality. 
Certainly  the  modern  poets  who  have  attempted 
drama  have  fallen  considerably  short  of  success. 
Tennyson's  dramas  are  interesting  historical 
studies;  they  contain  many  beautiful  and  a  few 
striking  passages ;  they  only  just  miss  of  success 
—  but  they  miss  it.  Lacking  in  effective  dra- 
matic situation,  in  rapid  action,  they  are  most  of  all 
lacking  in  independent  characters.  We  never  quite 
forget  that  the  actors  are  reciting  verses  composed 
for  them  by  Alfred  Tennyson.  Browning's  genius 
was  much  more  dramatic  than  Tennyson's,  yet  his 
dramas  are  his  least  successful  work.  He  could 
create  independent  characters,  but  he  could  hardly 
create  more  than  one  or  two  at  a  time.  His  dramas, 
therefore,  lack  variety  and  breadth.  There  are  not 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  in  them  —  only 
heroes  and  heroines.  His  plays  also  lack  action 
and  development ;  they  are  all  soliloquy  and  catas- 
trophe. Browning  is  a  superb  master  of  the 
dramatic  monologue,  a  drama  in  which  there  is 
but  one  person  for  each  scene,  and  in  which  the 
action  is  virtually  consummated  when  the  piece 
begins.  TJie  Ring  and  the  Book  is  a  wonderful 
series  of  such  monologues. 

But  whatever  be  the  future  of  any  particular  form 
of  poetry,  we  may  confidently  predict  that  in  some 
of  its  forms  poetry  will  prove  the  most  abiding 


POETRY  281 

kind  of  literature.  As  it  was  the  earliest,  so  it 
will  surely  be  the  latest.  For  it  is  the  most 
natural  and  typical  form  of  expression  for  that 
emotion  which  is  of  the  essence  of  literature. 
Other  literary  forms  may  come  and  go,  may  be  of 
comparatively  recent  growth  like  the  novel,  or  may 
seem  likely  to  die  out  like  oratory ;  but  poetry,  the 
utterance  of  pure  emotion  in  artistic  forms,  that 
will  last  as  long  as  the  race  lasts. 

For  poetry  is  not  so  much  the  ornament  as  the 
flower  of  life,  in  vital  relation  with  the  very  roots 
of  national  being.  Nothing  so  surely  determines  the 
character  of  a  people  at  any  period.  The  student 
might  better  know  —  could  he  know  but  one  —  the 
great  poetry  of  any  century  than  to  know  the  suc- 
cession of  its  rulers  or  the  statistics  of  its  industry. 
Because  the  poetry  will  give  him  the  gauge  of  that 
emotion  which  is  the  spring  of  all  activity,  the 
exponent  of  all  opinion,  the  essence  of  all  phi- 
losophy. 

Conversely,  if  we  are  to  decide  what  poetry  of 
to-day  is  most  likely  to  be  read  a  century  hence, 
we  may  without  hesitation  select  that  which  truth- 
fully depicts  the  deepest  and  healthiest  emotion  of 
to-day.  One  risks  little  in  predicting  that,  for 
lack  of  this,  the  new  romantic  poetry  of  the  later 
Victorian  period  is  destined  to  have  only  a  limited 
and  subordinate  fame.  It  is  detached  from  our 
age,  consciously  and  purposely  so.  Wearying  of 
the  moral  urgency  of  our  literature,  the  men  of 


282     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

this  school  —  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  Morris  —  go  back 
to  the  Middle  Ages,  to  romantic  myth  and  legend, 
that  they  may  escape  the  importunate  life  of 
to-day ;  and  in  this  old  material  they  find,  not  as 
the  great  epic  singers  do,  noble  and  universal 
motives,  but  rather  affected  picturesque  action, 
hectic  passion,  and  mediaeval  scenery.  But  when 
the  next  century  shall  pass  its  verdicts  upon  the 
work  of  this,  the  verse  of  this  school  is  sure  to  be 
ranked  below  that  of  Arnold  and  Browning  and 
Tennyson,  who  wrought  their  poetry  out  of  the 
deepest  thought  and  feeling  of  their  own  time. 
Still  less  may  any  man  hope  to  command  the 
future  merely  by  ingenious  mastery  of  poetical 
technique,  by  nice  handling  of  rondeaux  and  villa- 
nelles,  or  by  any  degree  of  dexterity  in  cutting  heads 
on  cherry-stones.  Specimens  of  such  delicacy  in 
the  manipulation  of  phrase  may  indeed  survive  for 
ages,  like  gems,  in  the  admiration  of  posterity. 
But  poetry  that  is  to  be  sure  of  immortality,  and  to 
be  accounted  great  forever,  must  be  made  of  deep, 
and  enduring,  and  universal  emotion. 


CHAPTER  EIGHTH 

Prose  Fiction 

Measured  merely  by  its  amount,  prose  fiction 
is  by  far  the  most  important  variety  of  literature 
to-day.  Nor  is  it  simply  the  bulk  of  this  literature 
that  renders  it  so  important.  Perhaps  more  original 
creative  genius  is  expended  in  the  novel  at  present 
than  in  poetry  or  any  other  form  of  literature ;  and 
it  is  certain  that  no  other  form  of  writing  exerts 
so  wide  an  influence.  The  book  that  is  read  by 
everybody,  learned  and  unlearned,  by  the  scholar 
and  the  idler,  is  nowadays  always  a  novel.  It  does 
not  follow,  indeed,  that  the  popular  novel  is  likely, 
in  most  cases,  to  attain  a  lasting  fame;  the  book 
that  all  the  world  is  reading  to-day  is  often  the 
book  that  all  the  world  will  forget  to-morrow. 
Yet  such  works  do  secure,  at  all  events,  the  first 
object  of  a  book:  they  are  read  by  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men ;  and  they  move,  if  somewhat 
languidly,  a  vast  mass  of  popular  sentiment.  Such 
is  the  penetrative  power  of  the  novel  that  it  is 
coming  to  be  a  favorite  vehicle  for  the  conveyance 
of  doctrine,  economic,  social,  or  religious.  The 
phenomenal  though  temporary  success  of  several 
"  purpose-novels  "  within  the  last  few  years  attests 
283 


284     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

the  immense  relish  with  which  the  public  swallows 
such  fiction-coated  instruction. 

Nor  does  there  seem  to  be  any  reason  why  the 
vogue  of  the  novel  should  decline  in  the  near 
future.  While  it  affords  opportunity  for  the  exer- 
cise of  a  wide-ranging  imagination  and  of  a  nice 
literary  art,  it  is  at  the  same  time  the  one  form 
best  adapted  to  that  high  average  of  middle-class 
intelligence  and  the  consequent  general  diffusion  of 
the  reading  habit  which  are  so  characteristic  of  our 
modern  democratic  civilization.  The  modern  novel 
was  evolved  as  soon  as  there  came  to  be  a  very  large 
reading  class  to  be  entertained  and  good  facilities 
for  supplying  that  class  with  reading  matter.  These 
conditions  did  not  obtain  in  England  until  about  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Up  to  that 
time  the  demand  for  popular  entertainment,  so  far 
as  it  had  been  met  at  all,  had  been  met  mostly  by 
the  stage.  The  stage  had  the  advantage  that  it 
could  appeal  to  the  rudest  as  well  as  to  the  most 
cultivated  classes,  and  did  not  even  require  of  its 
auditors  that  they  should  know  how  to  read.  But 
it  tended  to  cater  largely  and  increasingly  to  the 
grosser  elements  in  its  audience,  and  principally  for 
that  reason  declined  in  influence  after  the  first 
quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Moreover,  the 
acted  drama  was  available  as  a  rule  only  in  large 
towns.  As  intelligence  advanced,  and  the  number 
of  readers  increased,  especially  among  the  middle 
class  outside  the  towns,  it  was  inevitable  that  the 


PROSE   FICTION  285 

story  in  some  form  should  get  itself  told  in  print. 
For  the  story  is  an  easier,  more  spontaneous  variety 
of  literature  than  the  drama,  and  not  governed  by 
so  strict  laws  of  artistic  form.  The  writer  of  the 
story  is  bound  by  no  conventional  rules  of  method 
or  structure ;  he  may  write  a  three-volume  novel  or 
a  three-page  sketch.  He  has  only  to  tell  his  story 
in  his  own  way,  as  best  he  can.  And  he  enjoys 
the  utmost  range  of  theme ;  the  whole  field  of 
human  nature  and  incident  is  open  to  him.  There 
are,  perhaps,  fewer  general  principles  to  govern 
either  matter  or  treatment  in  fiction  than  in  any 
other  department  of  literature. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  novel  is  the  easiest  kind 
of  reading.  On  a  lower  emotional  key  than  poe- 
try or  the  drama,  its  characters  described  and 
its  [action  expanded  into  narrative,  it  makes  less 
demand  than  any  other  kind  of  reading  upon 
the  imagination  and  sympathies  of  the  reader. 
A  great  drama  like  Othello  or  Hamlet,  no  man 
can  read  appreciatively  without  finding  his  imagi- 
nation kept  upon  the  stretch,  without  constantly 
proposing  to  himself  the  deepest  questions  as  to 
character  and  motive,  without  feeling  his  emotions 
so  heightened  as  to  move  naturally  in  sympathy 
with  the  poetic  diction  and  measure  of  the  play. 
But  in  the  novel,  even  in  the  great  novel,  the 
reader  finds  this  work  mostly  done  for  him.  He 
needs  to  bring  to  the  book  only  an  intelligently 
receptive  attitude  of  mind.     Most  readers  would 


286    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITEEARY  CRITICISM 

take  it  somewhat  as  an  affront  if  their  novel  made 
any  exactions  upon  their  intellect,  or  required  any 
other  than  a  pleasantly  passive  mood  of  feeling. 
They  take  a  novel  as  they  take  a  beverage  :  it 
must  have  a  pleasant  taste,  be  easily  swallowed, 
afford  a  momentary  stimulation,  and  not  require 
to  be  digested.  This,  by  the  way,  is  what  renders 
the  novel  such  an  efficient  medium  for  inculcating 
any  sort  of  doctrine.  The  average  reader  doesn't 
expect  to  think  while  reading  a  novel,  and  doesn't 
think;  while  he  is  in  that  easy  temper  you  may 
quietly  go  on  begging  the  question  without  awak- 
ing his  logic.  The  story  is  a  sort  of  grateful 
anaesthetic,  under  the  influence  of  which  he  will 
calmly  endure  almost  any  operation  upon  his 
intellect. 

Of  course  this  general  popularity  of  fiction  is 
too  often  fatal  to  the  permanence  of  the  individ- 
ual novel.  The  book  we  read  so  easily  we  never 
read  twice.  We  rank  the  novel  as  light  litera- 
ture, and  no  light  literature  is  ever  great  litera- 
ture. Most  of  the  swarm  of  novels  issuing  new 
every  season  have  as  short  a  life  as  the  flies  of  a 
summer.  But  not  all.  Some  of  the  greatest  and 
most  enduring  work  of  this  century  has  doubtless 
been  done  in  fiction,  and  all  the  characteristics  of 
good  literature  discussed  in  the  preceding  chapters 
may  be  found  embodied  in  the  writings  of  Scott, 
Thackeray,  George  Eliot,  or  Hawthorne. 

In  attempting  to  estimate  the  permanent  value 


PROSE  FICTION  287 

of  a  work  of  fiction,  we  must  attend  first  to  its 
theme,  and  secondly  to  the  manner  in  which  that 
theme  is  treated.  The  term  theme  is  used  here 
broadly  to  include  not  only  the  plot  or  course  of 
action  in  the  novel,  but  the  persons  whose  charac- 
ter largely  determines  this  plot.  As  to  the  choice 
of  theme,  while  it  is  true  that  the  whole  field  of 
human  character  and  experience  as  he  can  conceive 
it  is  open  to  the  novelist,  it  is  idle  to  say  that  all 
things  in  that  field  are  of  equal  value.  We  shall 
estimate  the  theme  by  the  rank  and  the  power  of 
the  sympathetic  emotion  it  is  able  to  evoke.  One 
of  the  perennial  motives  of  the  human  mind,  for 
instance,  is  curiosity,  the  love  of  strange  or  unex- 
pected things.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  average 
man  ever  reads  anything  with  so  much  interest  as 
he  reads  the  morning  paper  —  and  he  probably 
reads  the  least  important  things  with  most  inter- 
est. Now  the  same  idle  curiosity  which  glances 
over  the  morning  paper  for  "news,"  is  likely  to 
be  attracted,  in  imaginative  writing,  by  unusual 
incident,  adventure,  strange  collocation  of  circum- 
stance. Such  a  reader  may  not  have  much  ap- 
preciation of  character,  and  does  not  understand 
varieties  of  human  nature  very  different  from  his 
own ;  but  he  can  without  much  effort  imagine  the 
familiar  external  circumstance  of  life  altered  in 
some  striking  ways.  The  novelist,  knowing  how 
universal  is  this  curiosity  and  how  easily  it  is 
touched,  is  always  tempted  to  appeal  to  it.     Hence 


288    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

the  tale  of  mere  adventure  or  tangled  plot,  the 
interest  of  which  resides  entirely  in  surprising  or 
improbable  incident.  It  should  seem  needless  to 
say  that  work  of  this  sort  can  never  be  of  much 
permanent  value. 

Yet  it  must  not  be  inferred,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  element  of  narrative  is  of  little  impor- 
tance in  fiction.  There  are  some  recent  critics  who 
tell  us  that  only  children  and  people  whose  minds 
have  not  grown  up  can  any  longer  be  expected  to 
care  for  a  story.  Besides,  they  say,  the  stories 
are  all  told ;  the  hardened  novel  reader  knows 
them  all,  and  can  always  safely  predict  the  end 
from  the  beginning.  Moreover,  the  novelist,  they 
urge,  if  he  wish  to  depict  life  as  it  is,  must  avoid 
the  story  because  he  knows  the  story  must  be  false. 
Stories  in  fact  do  not  happen.  Human  life  does 
not  run  into  plots ;  it  stumbles  blindly  on  for  a 
time,  over  a  well-worn  road,  now  impelled  and 
now  diverted  by  circumstances  —  and  then  stops 
short.  But  in  contradiction  of  all  such  criticism 
as  this,  we  must  insist  that  precisely  this  element 
of  plot  in  human  life,  and  only  this,  is  of  interest 
to  art.  Mere  aimless  action  or  accidental  event  has 
no  significance  for  the  artist.  He  depicts  human 
life;  but  human  life  is  always  a  struggle  to  force 
circumstance  into  some  unity  of  plan  and  shape  it 
to  some  end.  And  it  is  only  in  this  struggle  that 
the  power  and  charm  of  character,  its  pathos  and  its 
sublimity,  are  revealed.     The  man's  life  may  end 


PROSE   FICTION  289 

in  success  or  in  tragic  failure ;  but  in  any  case,  if 
it  be  worth  a  place  in  art,  it  must  be  shown  to 
have  method  and  direction,  it  will  fall  into  story. 
Every  great  novel,  therefore,  will  be  seen  to  have  a 
strongly  marked  plot.  If  it  have  not,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  its  characters  are  but  feeble  or  feebly 
imagined.  Many  modern  novels  might  be  men- 
tioned which,  for  all  their  exquisite  manner  and 
delicate  analysis,  fail  to  hold  our  interest,  simply 
because  nothing  happens  in  them  and  we  see  no 
reason  why  anything  should  happen. 

But  while  the  novelist  can  never  forgo  the 
charm  of  plot  without  losing  a  great  and  perfectly 
legitimate  source  of  interest,  his  plot  ought  not  to 
be  merely  external  and  arbitrary,  imposed  upon 
the  characters  from  without.  It  is  rather  deter- 
mined by  the  persons  themselves ;  the  outcome  of 
those  forces  of  character  which  it  is  the  chief  pur- 
pose of  the  novelist  to  portray.  It  is  the  story 
that  is  in  human  lives.  That  is  not  a  great  plot, 
therefore,  which  proves  merely  the  ingenuity  of 
the  author  and  excites  the  mere  curiosity  of  the 
reader;  that  is  the  great  plot  which  shows  how 
circumstance  is  bent  to  personality.  It  follows 
that  the  distinction  commonly  made  between  the 
romance  and  the  novel,  though  sometimes  con- 
venient, is  not  very  clear  or  important.  For  the 
interest  of  the  romance,  as  well  as  of  the  novel, 
proceeds  from  the  characters ;  only  in  the  romance 
these  characters  are  brought  to  the  test  of  large 


290    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

or  striking  or  unfamiliar  circumstance;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  novel  of  society  often  derives 
its  interest  very  largely  from  that  prying  curiosity 
which  idle  minds  feel  about  the  smaller  incidents 
of  life. 

The  value  of  a  novel  as  a  picture  of  human  life 
will  evidently  depend  upon  the  amount  and  rank 
of  the  life  it  can  portray.  But  not  all  the  more 
important  phases  of  life  are  sure  to  be  interesting, 
and  the  first  necessity  of  a  novel  is  that  it  should 
interest.  The  novelist,  therefore,  must  select  such 
motives  as  are  evidently  among  the  deciding  forces 
of  human  action  and,  at  the  same  time,  appeal 
powerfully  to  general  sympathy.  One  such  motive 
he  can  always  find.  He  can  always  tell  a  love- 
story.  Probably  nine-tenths  of  all  fiction  is  built 
up  around  the  passion  of  early  love  between  the 
sexes.  This  is  inevitable,  and  that  for  a  variety 
of  reasons.  The  passion  of  love  between  the  sexes 
is  the  most  universal  and  normal  of  all  passions. 
No  other  is  so  sure  to  have  the  comprehension 
and  sympathy  of  every  reader.  And  no  other 
passion,  which  can  be  exhibited  in  isolation  as  this 
can,  influences  so  profoundly  the  course  of  indi- 
vidual life.  It  is  more  imperious  than  any  other ; 
men  make  more  sacrifices  for  it. 

"  Many  waters  cannot  quench  love, 
Nor  the  floods  drown  it," 

as  one  of  the  oldest  of  love-songs  says.  When 
healthy  and  normal,  it  quickens  reverence  and  all 


PEOSE   FICTION  291 

gentler  feeling,  refines  and  spiritualizes  the  man; 
when  unhealthy  or  misplaced,  it  can  set  all  the 
currents  of  feeling  out  of  course  and  ruin  the  char- 
acter. This  passion  is  also  the  most  pleasing  of 
motives.  All  the  world  loves  a  lover.  Whatso- 
ever of  beauty  or  grace  there  is  in  any  character 
is  sure  to  be  heightened  by  love.  It  is  preemi- 
nently the  aesthetic  passion,  and  quickens  the  im- 
agination as  no  other  can. 

"  The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet 
Are  of  imagination  all  compact," 

says  Shakspere ;  and  indeed  every  lover  is,  or 
ought  to  be,  a  little  of  a  lunatic  and  more  of  a 
poet.  He  idealizes  and  he  aspires.  The  depiction 
of  the  passion  of  love,  therefore,  naturally  calls  out 
all  bright  and  beautiful  imagery  and  suggestion. 
We  see  through  the  eyes  of  the  lover  again.  Who 
ever  heard  of  an  ugly  heroine  ?  Some  of  our 
modern  analytic  novelists  have  not  succeeded  in 
making  their  heroines  very  engaging,  and  that 
must  be  accounted  a  very  serious  grievance  against 
them;  but  they  have  not  ventured  upon  absolute 
ugliness.  Love  without  beauty,  to  the  lover, 
is  impossible.  Moreover,  love  is  the  passion  of 
youth,  and  whatever  retains  or  reproduces  for  us 
our  youth  is  sure  to  be  a  pleasure.  The  charm 
of  all  art  will  probably  be  found  to  be  at  bottom 
just  this  —  it  quickens  and  intensifies  the  sense 
of  life.  Art  is  the  spontaneous  yet  ordered  over- 
flow of  life.     It  knows  no  such  thing  as  age.     That 


292    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

is  what  makes  it  so  precious  to  us  men  and  women. 
For  the  one  inevitable  misfortune  of  life  is  to  grow 
old ;  to  feel  the  spring  of  our  life  less  elastic,  our 
perceptions  less  new  and  vivid,  our  joys  less  fresh, 
our  anticipations  less  eager  and  confident.  No 
added  philosophy  of  life's  afternoon  can  ever  quite 
atone  for  the  faded  poetry  of  its  morning.  But  it 
is  the  office  of  art  to  renew  this  early  freshness 
of  feeling  in  us.  And  it  may  be  doubted  whether, 
for  most  men,  anything  else  will  do  this  so  well  as 
a  vivid  and  healthy  picture  of  early  love.  We 
may  outgrow  any  interest  in  the  merely  appetitive 
side  of  love,  and  in  its  lusher  sentimentalities; 
but  we  never  get  beyond  a  sympathy  for  its  ten- 
derness and  beauty  and  aspiration.  Or,  if  we  do, 
it  is  time  we  were  buried.  Tennyson,  well  turned 
of  eighty,  writes  a  pretty  pastoral  drama  of  true 
love  under  the  greenwood  tree,  and  Browning  the 
aged,  in  one  of  his  very  latest  and  sweetest  lyrics, 
sings  the  Summum  Bonum  of  life 

"  In  the  kiss  of  one  girl." 

To  all  these  reasons  for  employing  the  passion 
of  early  love  as  a  predominant  motive  in  fiction, 
is  to  be  added  the  fact  that  it  always  suggests  a 
story,  and  so  gives  to  the  work  of  the  novelist 
something  of  plan  or  unity.  Love,  like  other 
fevers,  has  what  we  call  its  "  course " ;  and,  the 
cynic  wickedly  says,  ends  in  marriage.  This  often 
decides  the  plot  and  the  limits  of  the  novel.     Mar- 


PROSE  FICTION  293 

riage  is  in  most  novels  the  catastrophe ;  to  pursue 
the  story  further  might  be  anticlimax. 

For  all  these  reasons  love  must  always  be  a 
prominent  motive  in  the  majority  of  novels.  Yet 
these  very  facts  will  show  that  the  novel  which 
makes  this  passion  of  early  love  of  man  and  maid 
its  exclusive,  or  even  its  predominant,  motive  is  not 
likely  to  attain  the  highest  power  or  rank  as  litera- 
ture. Great  literature  must  exhibit  the  great  pos- 
sibilities and  exertions  of  our  human  nature, — 
strong  passions  and  strong  will,  depth  and  breadth 
of  experience.  But  in  the  novel  of  early  love  the 
hero  and  heroine  must  be  young,  inexperienced 
people.  We  do  not  ask  much  wisdom  from  sweet 
sixteen;  and  a  few  years  more  do  not  much  in- 
crease either  the  wisdom  or  the  sweetness.  Youth 
is  the  fair  frontispiece  of  life ;  but  for  experience, 
passion,  power,  we  must  read  further  in  the  book. 
Now  every  novelist  of  eminence  has  felt  this  dif- 
ficulty. The  heroine,  in  particular,  gives  him 
trouble.  If  she  be  engaging,  that  is  much;  if 
she  have  power  to  inspire  the  hero  to  heroism, 
that  is  perhaps  enough.  This  is  usually  the  func- 
tion of  Walter  Scott's  heroines:  they  are  not  so 
much  great  themselves  as  the  cause  of  the  great- 
ness that  is  in  others.  Similarly  in  the  novels  of 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  many  other  writers  of 
less  note,  the  hero  and  heroine  —  at  all  events,  the 
heroine  —  are  not  characters  of  much  evident  force 
or  experience.     It  is  this  which  most  frequently 


294    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

provokes  the  sneers  of  French  critics;  our  hero- 
ines, they  say,  are  insipid,  able  neither  to  feel  nor 
to  inspire  a  grand  passion. 

To  supply  this  deficiency  of  interest,  the  masters 
of  fiction  have  had  recourse  to  several  different 
plans.  Sometimes  the  novelist  has  frankly  relin- 
quished the  effort  to  concentrate  the  sympathy  of 
his  readers  upon  the  hero  or  heroine,  and  has  rele- 
gated them,  one  or  both,  to  a  subordinate  position. 
This  is  what  Scott  does.  His  young  people  are 
very  charming  persons  who  are  to  make  a  happy 
and  fairly  early  marriage  at  the  end  of  the  last 
volume;  but  the  interest  of  the  novel  does  not 
reside  in  them  so  much  as  in  the  great  march  of 
events  in  which  they  are  involved.  In  the  Old 
Mortality  it  is  not  the  lady  and  the  pair  of  her 
lovers  that  we  care  most  for ;  it  is  Claverhouse,  and 
Balfour  of  Burley,  and  Ephraim  MacBriar,  and 
Cuddie  Headrigg.  Or  sometimes  the  novelist  aban- 
dons the  motive  of  that  early  love  which  leads  to 
marriage,  and  makes  his  hero  and  heroine  older 
people  whose  love  has  been  tried  by  the  harder 
experience  of  adult  life.  Thus  the  novel  becomes 
a  study  of  mature  experience,  portraying  love,  per- 
haps, but  love  as  combined  with  manifold  other  mo- 
tives. George  Eliot's  Romola,  Middlemarch,  Daniel 
Deronda,  are  examples  of  this  kind  of  motive.  Or 
the  novelist,  representing  his  leading  characters  as 
mature  persons,  while  still  using  the  passion  of  love 
as  his  central  motive,  makes  the  passion  irregular, 


PROSE  FICTION  295 

unlawful,  or  in  some  way  in  such  conflict  with  cir- 
cumstance and  social  law  as  to  bring  out  all  its 
strength  and  tragic  possibilities.  This  is  commonly 
the  method  of  the  French  novel  of  the  better  class, 
which  most  frequently  turns  upon  a  violation  of  the 
Seventh  Commandment.  This  is  especially  so  in 
French  literature,  partly  because  of  laxer  ideas  of 
social  morality  among  the  French,  and  partly  be- 
cause in  their  social  system  marriage  is  a  matter  of 
prudent  arrangement  with  which  the  affections  of 
the  contracting  parties  usually  have  little  to  do  — 
often  the  beginning  of  love,  but  not  its  culmination. 
Yet  this  motive  is  found  very  largely  in  the  imagi- 
native literature  of  every  nation,  simply  because  it 
gives  opportunity  for  the  depiction  of  love  in  adult 
characters  and  in  its  most  strenuous  forms.  Nor 
can  we  maintain  that  this  theme  is  a  forbidden 
one.  The  whole  field  of  human  life  is  open  to  the 
literary  artist,  and  we  cannot  debar  him,  by  any 
considerations  either  of  art  or  of  morality,  from 
the  use  of  so  powerful  a  motive  as  is  afforded  by 
marital  jealousy  and  infidelity. 

But  we  may  insist,  on  grounds  both  of  art  and 
morality,  that  this  motive  shall  be  treated  in  a 
sane  and  noble  manner.  A  comparison  of  such 
dramas  as  Shakspere's  Othello,  or  Cymbeline,  or 
Winter's  Tale,  with  such  works  as  many  of  the 
modern  French  school,  —  say  of  Maupassant,  — 
will  show  the  difference  between  the  noble  and  the 
ignoble  treatment  of  the  same  theme.     The  modern 


296     PRINCIPLES   OF   LITERARY   CRITICISM 

novel  is  often  largely  a  study  of  mere  erotic  emo- 
tion, and  therefore  a  tragedy  of  the  appetites 
rather  than  a  tragedy  of  the  soul.  In  Shakspere's 
work,  on  the  contrary,  this  element  is  hardly  pres- 
ent as  a  literary  motive  at  all.  The  great  play  is 
the  struggle  of  affection,  of  doubt,  of  suspicion ;  it 
is  the  mental  agony  caused  by  the  sin,  not  the 
mere  appetite,  that  is  exhibited.  Nothing  more 
profoundly  and  spiritually  pathetic  can  be  con- 
ceived than  Othello's  moan, — 

"  O  the  pity  of  it,  Iago !  0  the  pity  of  it !  " 

It  is  an  incidental  result  of  the  unworthy  treat- 
ment of  this  motive  that,  in  order  to  give  proba- 
bility to  his  action,  the  novelist  usually  finds  it 
necessary  to  make  the  heroine  a  person  of  un- 
developed character  and  crude  emotions,  often  of 
narrow  intelligence  and  inferior  social  position;  a 
woman  quite  without  moral  or  spiritual  attractive- 
ness. This  charge  may  be  brought  against  many 
modern  English  novels  that  are  accounted  power- 
ful. Indeed,  one  sometimes  fears  that  the  good 
woman  is  likely  to  disappear  from  modern  fiction 
altogether.  The  hectic,  ill-balanced,  morbid  per- 
sons that  take  her  place  are  a  libel  upon  the  beauty 
and  charm  of  healthy  womanhood. 

There  is  a  further  danger  in  the  use,  not  only  of 
this  particular  motive,  but  of  all  irregular  or  ex- 
cessive passion,  that  the  novelist,  even  if  he  does 
exhibit  passion  and  not  mere  appetite,  will  mistake 


PROSE  FICTION  297 

violence  for  strength,  and  will  give  us  no  purifying 
or  uplifting  suggestions  from  his  work.  The  charge 
may  be  justly  made  against  much  so-called  powerful 
fiction,  that  its  passion,  instead  of  being  really 
strong,  is  hysterical  or  melodramatic,  in  some  way 
morbid  and  so  enfeebled.  For  genuine  strength  of 
passion  must  always  imply  some  sanity  and  force 
of  will,  some  power  of  resistance.  There  cannot 
be  much  strength  of  passion  in  a  nature  that  has  no 
poise  or  self-control,  and  that  every  puff  of  emotion 
may  overset. 

More  generally,  it  must  be  urged  that  the  exhibi- 
tion of  passion  of  any  kind  merely  for  its  own  sake 
as  an  end,  without  reference  to  its  relation  to  char- 
acter or  its  result  in  conduct,  is  never  good  art. 
The  office  of  art  is,  indeed,  to  appeal  to  our  emo- 
tions ;  but  the  value  of  this  appeal  depends  —  as 
shown  in  a  previous  chapter  —  on  the  grounds  and 
the  quality  of  the  emotions  excited.  The  spectacu- 
lar theory  of  art,  which  makes  of  the  passions  and 
struggles  of  life  a  pleasing  show,  is  unworthy  and 
is  sure  to  end  in  unwholesome  sensationalism. 
Passion,  which  is  simply  strenuous  emotion  of  some 
sort,  active  or  passive,  always  has  relation  to  some 
end,  and  when  shown  in  art  ought  to  be  contem- 
plated with  reference  to  that  end.  Healthy  life  is 
not  all  feeling;  it  issues  not  in  emotion  but  in 
action.  And  a  healthy  art  will  represent  life  so. 
Even  the  passive  emotions  it  will  depict  in  their 
relation  to  the  moral  forces  of  life.     For  sympathy 


298    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

that  is  aimless  and  spends  itself  in  mere  emotion 
always  enervates.  Appetites  long  fed  upon  this 
sort  of  literature  become  jaded,  and  hunger  for  what 
the  French  call  a  new  shiver.  It  will  be  found, 
therefore,  that  painful  or  depressing  emotion  for  its 
own  sake  is  never  characteristic  of  the  greatest  art. 
If  such  emotion  is  exhibited  at  all,  it  is  exhibited 
in  order  to  show  the  power  of  the  human  spirit  to 
endure  or  to  subdue  it.  For  art,  at  all  events  great 
art,  always  inspires  and  enlarges;  it  strengthens 
the  forces  of  life,  does  not  depress  or  enfeeble  them. 
Matthew  Arnold  in  a  second  edition  of  his  works  de- 
cided to  withdraw  one  of  his  most  ambitious  poems, 
the  Empedocles  on  Etna,  precisely  on  the  ground 
that  it  did  not  conform  to  this  condition  of  art.  In 
his  preface  he  declared  that  art  to  be  faulty,  "in 
which  suffering  finds  no  vent  in  action ;  in  which  a 
continuous  state  of  mental  distress  is  prolonged, 
unrelieved  by  incident,  hope,  or  resistance ;  in  which 
there  is  everything  to  be  endured,  nothing  to  be 
done.  In  such  situations  there  is  inevitably  some- 
thing morbid;  in  the  description  of  them,  something 
monotonous.  When  they  occur  in  actual  life  they 
are  painful,  not  tragic  ;  the  representation  of  them 
in  poetry  is  painful  also."  Arnold's  judgment  upon 
this  particular  poem  —  as  he  himself  afterwards 
felt  —  is  too  severe,  for  the  whole  effect  of  the 
Empedocles  is  to  induce  a  high,  stoic  calm  and  res- 
ignation; but  the  principle  is  without  question  a 
true  one,  and  it  condemns  a  great  deal  of  fiction 


PROSE  FICTION  299 

to  a  place  far  below  the  highest.  The  interest  of 
many  modern  novels  might  be  described  as  almost 
purely  pathological :  they  are  studies  of  mor- 
bid emotional  conditions  such  as  often  imply  posi- 
tive nervous  derangement.  They  make  no  appeal 
to  our  affections,  our  aspirations,  or  even  to  our 
righteous  indignation  ;  they  only  harrow  our  sensi- 
bilities —  or  try  to.  In  general,  the  pessimistic 
or  depressing  note  in  literature  is  a  sure  sign  of 
morbidness  and  a  lack  of  robust  life.  We  do  not 
rise  from  the  perusal  of  such  literature  with  a 
heightened  sense  of  the  beauty  of  living  and  the 
vigor  of  the  human  spirit,  but  rather  with  sympa- 
thies sicklied  and  unnerved,  or  with  a  hopeless 
sense  of  submission  to  circumstance  at  once  pitiless 
and  prosaic.  Surely  it  is  not  such  an  impression 
that  a  true  art  should  leave  upon  us.  We  can  give 
good  critical  reasons  for  our  natural  demand  that 
a  novel  should,  in  some  sense,  turn  out  well.  It 
may  not  end  in  sugared  marital  felicity,  with  "  God 
bless  you,  my  children,"  and  ten  thousand  a  year  ; 
but  its  total  effect  upon  the  emotions  should  be 
healthy  and  strengthening.  Shakspere's  most  ter- 
rible tragedies  brace  and  hearten  our  spirits.  They 
never  leave  us  with  a  sense  of  mere  horror,  or  with 
a  discouraged  or  nerveless  feeling.  Their  close 
is  often  pitiful,  sometimes  supremely  and  solemnly 
tragic ;  yet  we  shut  the  book  with  a  feeling  of  the 
beauty  and  value  of  the  great  virtues.  Such  art 
solemnizes  and  fortifies  our  souls.     It  meets  Aris- 


300    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

totle's   requirement  for  tragedy  ;  it  "  purines  the 
passions  by  pity  and  fear." 

We  must  further  protest,  in  the  interests  of  art, 
against  the  doctrine,  much  preached  of  late,  that 
anything  whatever  may  be  presented  in  literature, 
and  presented  in  any  way,  provided  only  that  it 
is  "  true  to  life  "  —  a  correct  transcript  of  certain 
facts.  Certain  writers  rather  pride  themselves  on 
the  lack  of  any  purpose  in  fiction,  save  the  desire 
to  record  some  facts  of  human  life  accurately, 
with  perfect  liberty  to  choose  whatever  facts  they 
please.  Some  follow  M.  Zola  in  the  notion  that 
the  novel  thus  becomes  of  positive  scientific  value 
as  an  experiment  in  life,  forgetting  that  you  can- 
not have  science  and  art  in  the  same  work.  If  the 
facts  are  actual  facts  of  observation  simply  tabu- 
lated or  recorded,  and  nothing  is  assumed  or  in- 
vented save  a  law  which  these  observed  facts  are 
to  confirm,  why,  you  have  indeed  made  a  scientific 
experiment,  but  you  have  not  made  a  novel.  Your 
literary  imagination  has  had  nothing  to  do  and  you 
can  have  no  place  for  the  emotions.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  have  invented  both  your  facts  and 
your  law,  that  is,  imagined  your  persons  and 
their  motives  and  acts,  why  then  you  have  a 
novel,  to  be  sure ;  but  you  no  longer  have  a  scien- 
tific experiment,  for  there  can  be  no  science  based 
on  imagined  facts.  But  many  novelists,  especially 
younger  ones,  without  going  so  far,  do  find  the 
supreme  if  not  the  only  test  of  excellence  in  the 


PROSE   FICTION  301 

material  of  a  novel  to  be  what  they  call  its  truth, 
meaning  thereby  its  correspondence  with  actual 
fact.  A  clever  young  American  novelist1  is  re- 
ported as  saying,  "My  literary  creed  is  this  —  I 
simply  ask  myself  the  question :  Am  I  true  to 
things  as  I  see  them  and  to  facts  as  they  appear 
to  me.  ...  A  great  many  young  people  ask  me 
if  I  can  give  them  any  rule  or  principle  that  will 
help  them.  When  they  do  this  I  give  them  this 
principle :  Write  about  things  of  which  you  know 
the  most  and  for  which  you  care  the  most ;  write 
without  any  regard  to  what  the  effect  on  the  reader 
may  be.  First,  be  true,  and  the  effect  will  take 
care  of  itself.  That  fundamental  principle  runs 
through  everything  I  attempt  —  not  only  every- 
thing I  write,  but  everything  I  teach  in  the  way 
of  literary  principle.  The  only  model  is  life,  the 
only  criterion,  truth." 

Well,  of  course,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  young 
people  —  or  old  people  —  should  write  about  things 
of  which  they  know  the  most  and  for  which  they 
care  the  most;  that  is  more  than  true,  it  is  a 
truism,  old  as  the  pyramids.  But  it  makes  a  vast 
deal  of  difference  to  the  value  of  a  writer's  work 
what  sort  of  things  he  cares  most  about.  If  he 
care  most  about  the  squalid  details  of  city  life  or 
the  arid  details  of  provincial  or  prairie  life,  he  will 
hardly  make  great  literature  out  of  such  material, 
however  faithful  the  correspondence  between  his 
1  Mr.  Hamlin  Garland. 


302    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

work  and  the  outward  fact.  It  is  not  true  that 
the  selection  of  his  facts  is  a  matter  of  indifference, 
or  a  matter  in  which  the  artist  is  to  be  guided  only 
by  the  principle  of  "truth"  — that  is  of  verisimili- 
tude. It  is  not  true  that  the  great  writer  can  work 
"  without  any  regard  to  what  the  effect  on  the  reader 
may  be."  The  effect  on  the  reader  is  the  object 
of  all  his  work.  He  writes  to  awaken  emotion; 
and  the  value  of  the  work  will  be  decided  by  the 
amount  and  quality  of  the  emotion  he  excites.  He 
will  therefore  invent  and  select  his  material  not 
solely  under  the  condition  that  it  shall  be  true  to 
life,  but  also,  and  primarily,  under  the  condition 
that  it  shall  be  such  as  to  have  upon  the  reader 
the  most  and  the  highest  emotional  effect.  It  is  no 
sufficient  justification  for  the  plot  of  any  novel 
that  it  can  be  matched  in  life.  Doubtless  there  are 
phases  of  human  nature  more  morbid,  squalid,  and 
depressing  than  any  fiction ;  and  it  is  just  possible 
there  are  men  and  women  more  stupid  than  any 
that  get  into  novels.  But  the  object  of  art  is  not 
to  show  us  all  that  is,  but  only  that  which  is  worth 
the  showing.  It  will  not  turn  away  from  any 
great  department  of  human  experience,  it  need 
not  blink  any  facts ;  but  it  will  never  be  content 
simply  to  harrow  or  offend  our  emotions  by  the 
realistic  recital  of  pain  or  of  pruriency.  True  art 
has  for  its  highest  function  to  present  the  ideal 
in  the  real. 

We  say  then,  in  summary,  that  in  so  far  as  we 


PROSE  FICTION  303 

are  measuring  fiction  by  its  themes,  we  shall  give 
highest  rank  to  that  work  which  appeals  not  pri- 
marily to  our  curiosity  for  external  incident,  but 
rather  to  our  interest  in  personal  character;  that 
presents  the  most  of  human  life  in  its  more  impor- 
tant relations ;  and  that  selects  from  the  whole 
field  of  human  experience  such  persons  and  actions 
as  shall,  when  truthfully  depicted,  move  most  pow- 
erfidly  our  healthy  and  noble  emotions. 

As  to  the  manner  of  treatment  or  handling  in  a 
work  of  fiction,  doubtless  no  very  specific  rules 
can  be  given.  Every  writer  will  attest  his  own 
genius  by  the  originality  of  his  methods.  But  it 
may  be  noticed  that  the  task  of  the  novelist  is 
essentially  the  same  as  that  of  the  dramatist.  Like 
the  dramatist,  he  must  present  to  us  a  group  of 
persons  in  action  so  that  we  may  see  them  vividly, 
understand  their  character,  and  follow  with  sym- 
pathetic interest  their  story.  It  is  safe  to  say, 
then,  that  in  general,  the  treatment  is  best  which 
is  least  analytic  and  most  dramatic.  The  charac- 
ters of  the  novel,  in  this  mode  of  treatment,  seem 
always  in  the  foreground  themselves,  and  the  story 
grows  before  our  eyes  in  their  action  and  dialogue. 
In  recent  times,  when  the  novel  of  incident  is  de- 
preciated, there  is,  indeed,  a  decided  tendency  to 
the  opposite,  or  analytic  method  in  the  delineation 
of  character.  Our  interest,  it  is  urged,  is  in  the 
character  and  motives  of  the  persons  of  the  novel, 


304    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

not  in  their  outward,  action.  Action  is  of  value 
only  as  revealing  character.  Great  credit  is  there- 
fore given  to  the  novelist  who  can  dissect  out  with 
subtlety  the  motives  of  his  fictitious  personages. 
The  result  is,  we  have  novels  in  which  next  to 
nothing  is  done.  Action  and  dialogue  are  both  re- 
duced to  a  minimum,  and  the  space  thus  gained  is 
occupied  by  minute  and  exhaustive  exposition  of 
motive.  Now  a  certain  amount  of  interpretation 
and  comment  is  welcome  in  a  novel  —  it  is  one  of 
the  peculiarities  that  differentiate  the  novel  from 
the  drama;  but  a  little  is  enough.  For  the  fatal 
objection  to  this  analytic  method  is  that  it  gives  no 
help  to  our  imagination.  No  amount  of  information 
and  explanation  at  second  hand  about  a  person, 
real  or  fictitious,  ever  gives  us  any  vivid  notion 
of  what  sort  of  person  he  really  is.  For  that,  we 
must  observe  for  ourselves  what  he  does  and  what 
he  says.  To  watch  him  a  week  and  talk  with  him 
half  an  hour  is  better  than  volumes  of  analysis. 
Similarly,  I  want  to  see  my  man  and  woman  in  the 
novel  for  myself ;  I  want  them  to  do  and  say  some- 
thing themselves  —  to  be  doing  and  saying  some- 
thing all  the  time.  Then  I  can  make  up  my  mind 
about  them  without  the  help  of  much  interpretation 
from  the  novelist.  No  matter  how  wise,  how  pro- 
found, how  intricate,  the  characters,  —  the  more  so 
the  better,  —  but  let  the  wisdom  be  evident  in  the 
characters,  not  in  long  parenthetical  sermons  by 
the   author   while   the   action   waits.     This   intro- 


PROSE   FICTION  305 

spective,  psychological  manner,  seen  at  its  worst  in 
such  a  book  as  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meister  (which 
Heaven  forfend  anybody  should  call  by  the  pleas- 
ant name  of  novel !)  is  to  be  found  in  some  of  the 
best  English  fiction.  All  the  later  work  of  George 
Eliot,  for  example,  is  vitiated  by  it.  Showing 
itself  in  excess  for  the  first  time  in  the  Middle- 
march,  it  steadily  increased  through  her  following 
books,  till  in  the  Theophrastus  Such  it  pushes  out 
the  story  altogether,  and  leaves  nothing  but  the 
sermons. 

Nor  is  this  acute  and  elaborate  analysis  useless 
only  for  the  imagination  of  the  reader ;  it  does  not 
prove  any  clear  and  strong  imaginative  grasp  on 
the  part  of  the  writer.  To  set  persons  before  us  in 
clear  objective  manner,  so  that  we  see  them  and 
can  make  up  our  mind  about  them  promptly  and 
decisively,  is  a  far  surer  test  of  strong  imagination 
than  to  talk  about  them  and  explain  and  analyze 
them  endlessly.  It  is  harder  to  create  a  man,  even 
a  man  of  fiction,  than  it  is  to  tell  how  he  would  act 
and  feel  if  only  you  coidd  create  him.  Accordingly, 
the  verdict  of  posterity  will  probably  be  that  the 
greatest  novelists,  as  a  rule,  are  those  most  objective 
and  dramatic  in  manner.  Sometimes  the  novelist 
makes  himself  a  sort  of  person  in  his  story.  That 
is,  he  introduces  chat  and  comment  of  his  own  upon 
his  characters;  not,  however,  at  all  in  the  way  of 
analysis  or  interpretation,  but  rather  as  if  he  were 
talking  familiarly  with  the  reader  about  them  as 


306    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

objective  persons.  Chaucer  is  always  doing  that, 
and  he  is  one  of  the  best  of  story-tellers.  Among 
English  novelists,  Fielding  and  Thackeray  are  most 
in  the  habit  of  thus  taking  the  reader  into  their 
confidence  and  discussing  with  him  the  persons  of 
their  own  creation.  But,  if  not  carried  to  excess, 
this  manner  is  a  stimulus  to  our  imagination;  it 
seems  to  give  objective  reality  and  verisimilitude 
to  the  persons  of  the  story. 

The  same  reasons  that  exclude  from  the  novel  over 
analysis  and  interpretation  may  be  urged  against 
needless  description.  It  is  quite  possible  for  a 
novel  to  be  overburdened  with  description.  All 
purely  descriptive  matter  beyond  that  absolutely 
necessary  to  enable  us  to  realize  the  surroundings 
of  the  action  is  of  doubtful  value.  We  must,  of 
course,  have  some  stage  and  setting  for  the  figures 
we  are  to  imagine.  The  imagination  cannot  set  up 
objects  in  vacancy.  Even  the  dramatist  is  obliged 
to  give  hasty,  passing  hints  to  our  scene-painting 
fancy.  These  snatches  of  description,  often  exqui- 
sitely beautiful,  — 

"  How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this  bank," 
or, 

"  Yon  moon  that  silvers  all  these  fruit  tree-tops," 
or, 

"Jocund  day  stands  tip-toe  on  the  misty  mountain-tops," 
or, 

"  What  hour  now  ?  I  think  it  lacks  of  twelve.  The  air 
bites  shrewdly  ;  it  is  very  cold  —  " 


PROSE   FICTION  307 

these  glimpses  the  novelist  may  expand  into  full 
pictures;  and  if  it  be  done  with  skill  and  vivid 
imagination,  the  description  will  often  very  much 
heighten  the  impressiveness  of  the  action.  In  the 
best  imaginative  literature  the  scene  is  always  felt 
to  be  subtly  in  harmony  with  the  sentiment  and 
action.  But  when  description  is  extended  into 
word-painting  for  its  own  sake,  and  allowed  to 
overlay  or  impede  the  action,  it  at  once  becomes  a 
blemish.  Even  in  some  novels  famous  for  their 
descriptive  power  or  beauty,  —  as,  for  example, 
Blackmore's  Loma  Doone,  —  there  certainly  is  far 
too  much  mere  scenery.  In  regard  to  this  whole 
question  of  detail  in  the  construction  of  a  work  of 
fiction,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  was  one  of  the 
most  direct  and  swift  of  modern  story-tellers,  says : 
"  Let  the  writer  choose  a  motive,  whether  a  character 
or  passion  .  .  .  and  allow  neither  himself  nor  any 
character  in  the  course  of  the  dialogue  to  utter 
one  sentence  that  is  not  part  and  parcel  of  the 
business  of  the  story  or  the  discussion  of  the 
problem  involved." 

Yet  any  such  rule  as  this  must  be  liberally  inter- 
preted. For  a  great  novel  should  have  not  only  unity 
and  rapidity  of  movement ;  it  should  have  also  life- 
likeness  and  breadth.  And  these  latter  qualities 
require  a  considerable  amount  of  subsidiary  detail. 
The  novel,  more  than  any  other  form  of  literature,  is 
a  picture  of  life  as  it  is,  a  transcript  of  some  chap- 
ter of  human  experience.     And  in  real  life  every 


308     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

person,  however  strenuous  his  individuality,  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  network  of  minor  circumstance,  and  a 
company  of  minor  people.  The  decisive  actions  of 
his  life,  however  striking,  are  not  really  isolated ; 
they  are  part  and  parcel  of  a  tangled  web  in  which 
all  his  neighbors  are  implicated.  Now  the  prob- 
lem of  the  novelist  is  to  display  clearly  the  char- 
acter and  motives  of  his  leading  personages,  while 
at  the  same  time  he  indicates  the  extent  and  com- 
plexity of  those  relations  in  which  they  are  placed. 
Only  so  can  his  story  seem  made  out  of  real  human 
life.  If  he  isolate  his  main  characters  and  touch 
only  the  high  points  of  their  career,  he  will  indeed 
give  direction  and  swiftness  to  his  narrative;  but 
he  will  lose  breadth  and  truth.  This  is  the  mail' 
ner  of  the  poet,  not  of  the  novelist.  Accordingly, 
we  find  the  novelist  wisely  introducing  minor  char- 
acter and  incident,  a  mass  of  detail  which  might 
at  first  seem  to  have  little  to  do  with  either  char- 
acter or  story,  but  which  serves  to  give  verisimili- 
tude and  life.  Indeed,  as  we  have  seen,  the  modern 
realist  sometimes  very  much  overdoes  this.  He 
reduces  his  characters  pretty  much  to  a  level  of 
mediocrity,  on  the  ground  that  there  are  no  heroes 
and  heroines  in  actual  life  as  we  are  most  of  us 
living  it,  and  he  systematically  diminishes  the  im- 
portance of  plot,  on  the  ground  that  life  in  fact 
does  not  run  into  plots ;  so  that  his  story  is  often 
deficient  alike  in  striking  character  and  striking 
incident,  but  is  a  marvellously  accurate  and  vivid 


PROSE   FICTION  309 

rendering  of  the  multifarious  small  details  that 
make  up  daily  life.  But,  as  we  have  insisted  in  a 
previous  chapter,  art  is  not  life,  it  is  not  even  an 
exact  transcript  of  life.  The  most  microscopic 
realism  must  select  among  the  myriad  facts  of  expe- 
rience, and  select  on  some  principle.  The  really 
great  novelist  knows  how  to  avoid  both  extremes, 
of  poetic  elevation  and  creeping  realism.  He  con- 
centrates our  attention  upon  his  leading  person- 
ages, and  in  their  action  exhibits  the  nobler  passions 
and  the  wider  interests  of  life ;  but  he  sets  these 
personages  in  just  such  a  net  of  inevitable  circum- 
stance as  surrounds  us  all,  so  that  they  shall  seem 
to  us  not  detached  heroic  figures,  not  poetic  ideals, 
but  living  familiar  men  and  women.  Thus  the 
charm  of  a  great  novel  is  often  very  like  the  charm 
of  a  book  like  Boswell's  Johnson:  it  brings  us 
into  intimate  acquaintance  with  a  group  of  noble 
people,  and  at  the  same  time  it  gives  us  a  thrilling 
sense  of  the  breadth,  the  raciness,  the  complexity, 
the  mingled  humor  and  pathos,  joy  and  sorrow,  of 
this  great  world  of  men  in  which  we  live. 

In  these  days  of  haste  there  is  a  manifest  ten- 
dency to  cut  down  the  novel  into  the  briefest  pos- 
sible form,  and  supplant  it  by  the  short  story.  The 
short  story  has  a  manner  and  structure  of  its  own. 
It  renders  an  incident,  a  single  phase  of  experience, 
an  unique  type  of  character.  It  is  to  the  novel 
something  like  what  the  ballad  is  to  the  epic.  Its 
popularity,  however,  is  due  largely  to  mental  indo- 


310     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

lence  and  to  the  demand  for  a  form  of  literature  that 
shall  merely  amuse.  The  influence  of  periodical 
literature,  moreover,  has  had  much  to  do  with  the 
immense  increase  of  this  form  of  fiction.  It  is  a 
sore  trial  of  patience  to  read  a  long  novel  by  bits, 
a  month  apart;  and  writers  of  fiction  have  been 
tempted,  for  that  reason,  to  reduce  the  element  of 
plot  in  longer  works  to  a  minimum,  so  that  the 
separate  parts  should  be  bits  of  character-study, 
not  closely  dependent  on  any  connecting  thread  of 
narrative.  And  from  this  there  is  only  one  step 
further  to  writing  a  series  of  short,  detached  stories. 
Yet  the  full-length  novel  will  retain  its  place  as 
the  latest  developed  literary  form,  and  the  one  best 
adapted  to  our  age.  It  has  greater  breadth  than 
any  other  form.  It  gives  us  at  once  the  charm  of 
poetry  and  the  reality  of  life.  It  renders,  as  nothing 
else  can,  all  the  varied  phrases  of  our  complex  modern 
society,  and  "  shows  the  very  age  and  body  of  the 
time,  his  form  and  pressure." 


CHAPTER  NINTH 

Summary 

It  should  be  said  again  at  the  close  of  this  dis- 
cussion, as  was  said  at  the  beginning,  that  the  fore- 
going pages  make  no  claim  to  cover  the  whole  field 
of  criticism.  They  aim  to  give  only  a  few  universal 
principles  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  literature, 
and  which  must,  therefore,  be  the  basis  of  our  judg- 
ment upon  the  writings  of  every  age.  Whether  our 
author  be  Homer  or  Browning,  Catullus  or  Burns, 
Sophocles  or  Shakspere,  it  is  impossible  to  form 
an  estimate  of  his  permanent  value  which  shall  not 
rest  upon  a  consideration  of  these  four  essential 
elements  of  his  work, — emotion,  imagination,  thought, 
form.  In  the  preceding  chapters  the  attempt  has 
been  made  to  notice  some  of  the  questions  sure  to 
arise  in  the  consideration  of  each  of  these  elements, 
and  some  of  the  principles  by  which  each  of  the 
four  is  to  be  measured. 

But  this  does  not  exhaust  the  function  of  criti- 
cism. Nor  is  a  power  of  just  appreciation  and 
sane  judgment  upon  each  of  these  elements  of  lit- 
erature all  the  necessary  equipment  of  a  critic.  By 
no  means.  The  critic  must  often  do  far  more  than 
pronounce  a  verdict  upon  the  absolute  literary  value 
311 


312     PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

of  his  author.  He  may  find  it  needful,  for  exam- 
ple, to  measure  the  author,  not  merely  by  absolute 
standards  like  those  here  laid  down,  but  also  by 
standards  of  that  past  age  in  which  his  author 
wrote.  He  must  distinguish  between  universal  and 
merely  historical  interests.  He  must  know  how 
to  make  allowances  for  surroundings  and  influences 
that  change  with  the  centuries.  He  must  put  him- 
self in  his  author's  place :  nay  more,  he  must  put 
himself,  by  turns,  in  the  place  of  authors  of  differ- 
ent ages,  that  he  may  compare  them,  estimate 
aright  the  power  of  temporary  fashion,  and  mark 
the  current  of  literary  tendency.  To  do  all  this  de- 
mands full  and  accurate  historical  knowledge.  No 
man  can  so  ill  afford  to  be  ignorant  of  history  as 
the  critic.  And  if  he  would  be  thoroughly  fur- 
nished for  his  work,  he  must  be  at  home,  not  merely 
in  the  external  history  of  politics  and  of  states,  but 
in  that  more  intimate  history  of  the  human  mind 
which  finds  expression  in  manners,  in  philosophy, 
in  religion. 

But  if  the  critic  often  aims  to  do  more  than  to 
render  an  estimate  of  absolute  literary  values,  he 
often,  on  the  other  hand,  aims  to  do  less.  There  is 
much  valuable  writing  which,  though  often  called 
criticism,  is,  in  fact,  rather  description  or  exposi- 
tion. A  large  part  of  the  work  of  the  reviewer, 
for  instance,  must  always  be  to  describe  the  subject 
or  plot  of  the  work  under  review,  to  point  out 
the  strictly  individual  elements  in  it,  to  show  what 


SUMMARY  313 

is  peculiar  in  the  temper  of  the  writer  or  new  in 
his  view  of  life,  what  is  novel,  or  perhaps  unique, 
in  his  manner.  And  the  reviewer  may  stop  here. 
But,  in  strictness,  this  is  not  yet  criticism.  It  is 
one  thing  to  describe  faithfully,  or  even  vividly,  a 
work  of  letters ;  quite  another,  to  estimate  rightly 
its  permanent  value. 

Nor  does  this  little  book  venture  to  prescribe 
rules  by  which  the  principles  it  states  are  to  be 
applied  in  the  specific  processes  of  criticism.  It 
makes  no  attempt  to  lay  down  a  definite  Critical 
Method.  There  may  be  doubt  whether  such  an 
attempt  is  ever  likely  to  be  very  successful.  The 
essential  elements  of  literature  are  combined  in 
such  infinitely  varied  ways  that  no  critical  instru- 
ment can  be  devised  to  fit  them  all.  Original 
genius  cannot  be  expected  to  pour  itself  into  any 
formal  moulds  or  submit  to  any  critical  yard- 
sticks. A  work  of  art  is  too  complex  a  thing  to 
be  measured  by  any  such  rigid  and  simple  rules  as 
test  the  validity  of  a  syllogism  or  a  geometrical 
theorem.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  even  if  the 
subject-matter  of  criticism  were  less  subtle  and 
varied,  the  critic  himself  would  refuse  to  be  tied 
up  by  any  Critical  Method.  He  must  insist  upon 
the  free  play  of  his  own  personality  in  the  treat- 
ment of  his  theme.  Nullius  addictus  jurare  in 
verba  magistri  is  a  maxim  which  applies  as  well 
to  the  methods  of  the  critic  as  to  his  verdicts.  No 
two  men  can  see  their  subject  from  precisely  the 


314    PRINCIPLES   OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

same  point  of  view,  or  handle  it  in  the  same  man- 
ner. Not  only  the  charm  but  the  value  of  literary 
criticism  must  always  depend,  in  great  part,  upon 
the  natural,  unrestricted  action  of  the  critic's  own 
personality.  For  the  first  requisite  of  any  just 
criticism  is  that  the  critic  should  have  brought 
himself  into  something  like  intimate  personal  sym- 
pathy with  his  author;  and  this  he  can  never  do 
through  any  formal  apparatus  or  method.  How 
his  fundamental  principles  shall  be  applied,  must, 
therefore,  be  left  to  the  critic  himself ;  it  is  enough 
if  his  final  judgments  are  in  accord  with  those 
principles. 

To  say  this,  however,  is  not  to  admit  that  criti- 
cism is  nothing  more  than  the  personal  impressions 
of  a  sympathetic  reader.  This  theory  of  criticism 
—  which  it  has  become  the  fashion  to  call,  by  a 
name  borrowed  from  the  sister  art  of  painting,  "  im- 
pressionist"—  has  found  of  late  many  advocates, 
especially  among  younger  French  writers,  such  as 
M.  Anatole  France  and  M.  Jules  Lemaitre.  But, 
however  fascinating  may  be  this  expression  of 
personal  preference,  —  and  no  one  would  deny  that 
it  is  often  very  fascinating  indeed,  —  it  cannot  be 
accounted  criticism.  To  accept  such  a  conception 
of  the  function  of  criticism  is  to  abandon  all 
attempt  to  arbitrate  between  differing  judgments, 
and  to  give  up  all  distinctions  of  better  or  worse  in 
letters.  It  substitutes  individual  taste,  often  indi- 
vidual caprice,  for  critical  principle,  and  leaves  us, 


SUMMARY  315 

without  any  authority  or  certified  literary  tradi- 
tion, at  liberty  to  rank  the  fad  of  the  hour  along 
with  the  classic  of  the  ages. 

The  truth  is,  no  man's  single  preference  can 
be  accepted  as  an  infallible  guide.  Probably  even 
the  most  catholic  critic  has  moods  in  which  he 
would  prefer  Eudyard  Kipling  to  William  Shak- 
spere ;  certainly  he  has  moods  in  which  he  would 
prefer  Eobert  Burns  to  John  Milton.  And  there 
are  doubtless  many  brilliant  writers  with  whom  such 
preferences  would  be  constant.  But  the  sane  critic 
would  never  think  of  regarding  such  impressions 
as  deliberate  critical  estimates.  He  knows  that  in 
literature,  as  in  ethics,  we  all  often  like  the  second 
best  better  than  we  like  the  best.  Our  preferences 
need  to  be  warranted  by  some  larger  reason.  Criti- 
cism becomes,  therefore,  in  great  measure  a  matter 
of  education.  We  may  school  ourselves  to  like  what 
we  know  is  highest,  and  be  sure  that  if  this  liking 
becomes  sincere,  it  will  far  outlast  our  temporary 
and  unriper  preferences.  As  the  ablest  of  living 
critics 1  says,  "  Let  us  admit  it  with  a  good  grace ; 
let  us  put  something  above  our  tastes;  and  since 
there  must  be  criticism,  let  us  say  that  there  can- 
not be  any  that  is  not  objective." 

Such  objective  criticism  must  certainly  be  based 
upon  some  general  principles  superior  to  the 
caprice  of  the  individual,  grounded  in  reason,  and 

1 M.  F.  Brunetiere,  Impressionist  Criticism,  in  the  vol. 
"  Essays  in  French  Literature."    Tran.  by  D.  M.  Smith,  p.  232. 


316    PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

confirmed  by  general  assent.  These  principles  will 
not  be  very  numerous ;  and  if  they  are  to  be  applied 
to  the  infinite  variety  of  literary  expression,  they 
must  of  necessity  be  not  precise,  but  large  and 
comprehensive.  Some  of  these  principles  it  has 
been  the  effort  of  the  preceding  chapters  to  state 
and  discuss. 


APPENDIX 


ILLUSTRATIVE   REFERENCES 

The  principles  laid  down  in  the  preceding  pages,  if 
correct  and  correctly  stated,  apply  to  all  literature,  and 
will  therefore  find  illustration  in  any  course  of  good 
reading,  or  even  in  almost  any  single  masterpiece  of 
literature.  It  has  been  thought,  however,  that  the 
value  of  the  book,  for  some  readers,  may  perhaps  be 
increased  by  bringing  together  here  a  considerable 
number  of  references  to  books  or  passages  that  may 
illustrate  the  leading  principles  of  the  text,  and  furnish 
material  for  critical  discussion  and  decision.  The  num- 
ber of  books  chosen  for  such  reference  has  purposely 
been  limited,  and  the  same  book  often  used  to  illustrate 
several  different  principles.  The  whole  list  of  works 
cited,  though  it  represents  some  seventy  authors  in  all 
the  great  departments  of  literature,  will  be  found  to 
include  few  books  that  are  not  familiar,  none  that  are 
not  easily  accessible,  and  few  if  any  that  are  not  of 
recognized  and  permanent  value.  Arranged  in  chrono- 
logical order,  at  the  close  of  this  list  of  references,  these 
works  may  serve  as  a  fairly  representative  course  of 
reading  in  the  best  English  poetry  and  prose. 

As  the  first  two  chapters  are  concerned  with  intro- 
ductory matters  that  hardly  admit  such  specific  illustra- 
tion, the  references  begin  with  the  third  chapter. 

Titles  of  poetry  and  drama  are  in  italics. 
317 


318  APPENDIX 

CHAPTER  THIRD 

The  Emotional  Element  in  Literature 

P.  63.  "  Literature  cannot  appeal  to  the  self-regarding 
emotions." 

Why  does  not  this  rule  exclude  the  expression  of  purely 
personal  feeling  in  such  poems  as  the  following?  — 

Shakspere's  Sonnets,  29,  30,  110,  146;  Cowper's  My 
Mary,  The  Castaway ;  Burns's  Highland  Mary ;  Shelley's 
Lines  Written  in  Dejection  near  Naples. 

P.  64.  "  Painful  emotions  are  never  a  proper  object  of 
literary  appeal." 

Consider  the  effect  of  such  passages  as  the  follow- 
ing:— 

Shakspere's  King  Lear,  Act  in.,  sc.  7 :  Webster's  The 
Duchess  of  Malfy,  Act  IV.;  Shelley's  The  Cenci ;  or,  the 
dominant  feeling  of  such  modern  novels  as  Hardy's  "  Tess 
of  the  D'Urbervilles,"  "  Jude  the  Obscure." 

Pp.  66-67.  Consider  how  painful  or  pathetic  experi- 
ences are  used  to  produce  legitimate  literary  effects :  — 

1.  In  tragic  drama. 

Shakspere's  Hamlet,  Othello,  King  Lear. 

2.  In  tragic  narration. 

Both  in  poetry,  Browning's  The  Ring  and  The  Book 
(especially  sections  vi.  Giuseppe  Caponsacchi,  and  vii. 
Pompilia)  ;  and  in  prose  fiction,  Scott's  "  Bride  of  Lam- 
mermoor,"  George  Eliot's  "  Mill  on  the  Floss." 

3.  In  elegiac  verse. 

Dirge  in  Shakspere's  Cymheline  (Act  IV.,  sc.  2),  Gray's 
Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  Wordsworth's  "Lucy" 
Poems,  Arnold's  Thyrsis,  Emerson's  Threnody,  Rossetti's 
The  Portrait. 

4.  In  lyric  poetry  of  melancholy  or  doubt. 


APPENDIX  319 

Burns's  To  a  Daisy,  Byron's  On  This  Day  I  Complete  My 
Thirty-sixth  Year,  Shelley's  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  Keats's 
Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  Clough's  The  Stream  of  Life,  Arnold's 
Dover  Beach  and  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse, 
Morris's  The  Half  of  Life  Gone. 

P.  82.  The  Justice  or  Propriety  of  Emotion. 

Tennyson's  Maud.  What  is  the  central  motive  of  the 
poem  ?  Is  the  poem,  as  some  have  said,  a  study  of  hysteria? 
Is  the  character  of  the  hero  fitted  to  excite  strong  emo- 
tional interest?  Are  his  sentiments,  especially  those 
regarding  the  Crimean  war,  genuinely  poetical  ? 

Beside  the  minor  poems  of  Byron,  mentioned  in  the 
text,  consider  the  melancholy  of  Child e  Harold,  especially 
in  such  passages  as  Canto  I.,  stanzas  1-13,  Canto  II., 
stanzas  4,  7,  9,  12,  15. 

Compare  Wordsworth's  Michael  with  some  of  his  other 
poems  on  humble  themes,  as  Alice  Fell,  Simon  Lee,  The 
Idiot  Boy. 

Compare  with  the  pathos  of  Dickens  in  the  passages 
mentioned  in  the  text  (p.  84)  the  pathos  of  Thackeray, 
e.g.  "Vanity  Fair,"  ch.  XVIIL,  "The  Newcomes,"  ch. 
XXVI.,  "  Pendennis,"  ch.  LIL,  the  essay  "  De  Finibus  " 
in  "The  Roundabout  Papers." 

P.  86.  The  Vividness  or  Power  of  Emotion. 

This  quality  of  good  writing  is  so  evident  in  all  the 
best  literature  as  hardly  to  need  illustration ;  but  for  a 
few  examples  of  vividness  or  power  in  various  types  of 
emotion,  see  — 

Shakspere.  The  tragedies,  throughout,  and,  in  the 
comedies,  such  passages  as  Twelfth  Night,  Act  II.,  sc.  4 ; 
A  Winter's  Tale,  Act  III.,  sc.  2 ;  The  Tempest,  Act  IV., 
sc.  1,  11.  150-160. 

Milton.  Paradise  Lost,  Book  I. ;  Sonnet,  On  His 
Blindness;  Samson  Agonistes,  11.  665-705,  1745-1758. 


320  APPENDIX 

Burns.  Highland  Mary,  Farewell  to  Nancy,  "Open  the 
door  to  me,  0,"  Tarn  Glen,  The  Jolly  Beggars. 

Coleridge.     The  Ancient  Mariner. 

Wordsworth.  "Three  years  she  grew,"  Ode  to  Duty,  The 
Highland  Reaper. 

Byron.  Childe  Harold,  Canto  III.,  stanzas  86-96  ;  Canto 
IV.,  stanzas  178-184 ;  Manfred,  Act  IV.,  sc.  4,  11.  1-40. 

Shelley.  To  a  Skylark,  To  the  West  Wind,  In  Lechlade 
Churchyard,  To  Jane  —  The  Recollection,  The  Cenci,  Act 
III.,  sc.  1,  and  Act  V.  throughout. 

Keats.     Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci. 

Tennyson.     In  Memoriam,  throughout. 

Browning.  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  Act  III. ;  The 
Ring  and  The  Book,  (Giuseppe  Caponsacchi,  and  Pom- 
pilia),  Pippa  Passes  (Morning),  Saul,  Andrea  del  Sarto, 
James  Lee's  Wife,  May  and  Death,  Confessions. 

Rossetti.     The  King's  Tragedy. 

Morris.     The  Haystack  in  the  Floods. 

Swift.  "Tale  of  a  Tub,"  §§  6,  9  ;  "  Argument  against 
Abolishing  Christianity,"  "The  Examiner,"  Nos.  16,  21, 
37;  "The  Drapier's  Letters,"  No.  1;  "Gulliver's  Travels," 
Part  HI.,  ch.  X. ;  Part  IV.,  chs.  I.-TV. 

Burke.  "  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America," 
"Speech  to  the  Electors  of  Bristol"  (first  half),  "Reflec- 
tions on  the  Revolution  in  France  "  (first  half),  "  Letter 
to  a  Noble  Lord." 

Carlyle.  "Sartor  Resartus,"  Book  III.,  ch.  VIII.; 
"Past  and  Present,"  Book  I.,  ch.  II.;  "The  French 
Revolution,"  Vol.  II.,  Book  TV.,  ch.  VI. ;  Book  VI.,  ch- 
VII.;  Vol.  III.,  Book  IV.,  ch.  VII.;  "The  Life  of 
Sterling,"  ch.  VIII. 

Ruskin.  "  Modern  Painters,"  Part  V.,  ch.  XX., 
§§  44-49;  Part  VI.,  ch.  X.,  §§  23-24;  "The  Crown  of 
Wild  Olive,"  Lecture  II. ;  "  Fors  Clavigera,"  Letters 
III.-V. 


APPENDIX  321 

P.  93.    The  Continuity  or  Steadiness  of  Emotion. 

For  further  examples  of  the  failure  to  maintain  emo- 
tion in  the  proper  key,  lapses  into  prose,  see  — 

Byron.  Manfred,  Act  II.,  sc.  4 ;  Childe  Harold,  Canto 
IV.,  stanzas  175,  176.  The  fault  may,  indeed,  be  illus- 
trated from  almost  any  one  of  Byron's  longer  poems. 

Wordsworth.  The  Excursion,  passim;  especially  those 
portions  where  the  general  poetic  interest  is  highest,  as 
Books  Second  and  Sixth. 

Tennyson.  Maud,  VI.  and  XX.  Is  The  Princess,  A 
Medley,  a  medley  of  emotional  effects  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  note  how  steadiness  and  unity  of 
emotional  effect  are  secured  with  variety  of  image  or  inci- 
dent, or  of  both,  in  such  poems  as  Milton's  Comus,  Gray's 
Elegy,  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner,  Shelley's  To  a  Sky- 
lark, Keats's  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  Tennyson's  Guinevere. 

Is  the  harmony  of  emotional  effect  in  Shakspere's  great 
dramas  marred  by  such  passages  as  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
Act.  IV,  sc.  3,  Hamlet,  Act  V,  sc.  1? 

Is  the  emotional  interest  sustained  in  Book  Third  of 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost  f 

P.  97.   The  Range  or  Variety  of  Emotion. 

Test  the  range  of  Shakspere's  powers  by  enumerating 
either  the  distinct  types  of  character  exhibited,  or  the 
different  emotions  appealed  to,  in  any  one  of  his  great 
plays,  as  Henry  IV.;  or,  better,  in  any  group  of  plays 
containing  romance,  history,  tragedy,  and  comedy,  as : 
A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Henry  IV.,  As  You 
Like  It,  Hamlet,  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  A  Winters 
Tale. 

Compare  Tennyson  and  Browning  with  reference  to  the 
range  of  their  emotional  power,  selecting  for  such  com- 
parison from  the  works  of  each  poet  six  poems  fairly 
representing  the  variety  of  his  work. 

Y 


322  APPENDIX 

From  Tennyson :  — 

The  Lotos  Eaters,  Locksley  Hall,  In  Memoriam,  The 
Princess,  Idylls  of  the  King  (The  Holy  Grail  and  Guine- 
vere), The  Northern  Farmer. 

From  Browning :  — 

Pippa  Passes,  Saul,  Colombe's  Birthday,  Andrea  del 
Sarto,  The  Ring  and  The  Book  (Giuseppe  Caponsacchi, 
Pompilia,  and  the  Pope),  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra. 

William  Morris's  Earthly  Paradise  affords  a  good  ex- 
ample of  the  monotony  produced  in  an  otherwise  very 
beautiful  poem  by  the  lack  of  variety  in  motive. 

P.  102.   The  Rank  or  Quality  of  Emotion. 

Consider  the  relative  rank  and  literary  value  of  the 
emotions  appealed  to  by  the  following  poems,  each  a 
masterpiece  of  its  kind. 

1.  Poetry  of  unusual  musical  charm. 

Swinburne.  The  Garden  of  Proserpine,  First  Chorus 
in  Atalanta  in  Calydon,  Ave  atque  Vale.  Compare  the 
last  of  these  poems,  which  is  in  memory  of  Baude- 
laire, with  Arnold's  Thyrsis,  which  is  in  memory  of 
Clough. 

2.  Vers  de  Societe. 

Prior.  To  Chloe  Jealous  —  A  Better  Answer,  To  a  Child 
of  Quality. 

Locker.     To  My  Grandmother,  St.  James  Street. 

Dobson.  Tu  Quoque,  Dorothy,  Cupid's  Alley,  Triolets, 
Witii  Pipe  and  Flute. 

Bunner.     The  Way  to  Arcady. 

3.  Romantic  or  ^Esthetic  Poetry. 
Coleridge.     The  Rime  of  the  A  ncient  Mariner. 

Keats.  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  Lamia,  Hyperion,  La  Belle 
Dame  sans  Merci. 

Morris.  The  Earthly  Paradise — The  Man  Born  to  be 
King,  The  Land  East  of  the  Sun  and  West  of  the  Moon, 
The  Watching  of  the  Falcon. 


APPENDIX  323 

Contrast  the  dominant  emotion  in  Keats's  poetry  with 
that  in  Wordsworth's,  as  suggested  by  the  familiar  quota- 
tion from  either  poet :  — 

"  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever." 


and 


"  To  me  the  meanest  flower  can  give 
Thoughts,  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 


Compare,  with  reference  to  the  rank  of  their  emotion, 
Tennyson's  Lady  of  Shalott  and  The  Lotos  Eaters  with  his 
Morte  d' Arthur  and  Ulysses. 

Has  Tennyson  heightened  the  poetic  value  of  The  Idylls 
of  the  King  by  emphasizing  an  ethical  intention,  by  mak- 
ing the  poem  an  allegory,  "  shadowing  sense  at  war  with 
soul,"  rather  than  by  treating  his  theme  purely  as  mediae- 
val and  romantic  narrative  ? 

If  "moral  emotion  is  of  higher  literary  value  than 
purely  aesthetic,  sensuous  emotion,"  why  is  not  purely 
ethical  poetry  of  higher  rank  than  any  other?  e.g.  Pope's 
Essay  on  Man,  Dryden's  Religio  Laid. 

P.  111.  The  Demands  of  Practical  Morality  upon 
Literature. 

Johnson  says  of  Shakspere  in  the  famous  Introduction 
to  his  edition  of  the  u  Works,"  "  His  first  defect  is  that  to 
which  may  be  imputed  most  of  the  evil  in  books  or  in 
men.  He  sacrifices  virtue  to  convenience,  and  is  so  much 
more  careful  to  please  than  to  instruct,  that  he  seems  to 
write  without  any  moral  purpose.  ...  He  makes  no 
just  distribution  of  good  or  evil,  nor  is  always  careful 
to  show  in  the  virtuous  a  disapprobation  of  the  wicked ; 
he  carries  his  persons  indifferently  through  right  and 
wrong,  and,  at  the  close,  dismisses  them  without  further 
care,  and  leaves  their  example  to  operate  by  chance.  This 
fault  the  barbarity  of  the  age  cannot  extenuate ;  for  it  is 
always  a  writer's  duty  to  make  the  world  better,  and 
justice  is  a  virtue  independent  on  time  or  place." 


324  APPENDIX 

Is  this  criticism  just?  If  not,  why  not?  Consider  the 
moral  influence  of  such  a  depiction  of  character  as  that 
of  Sir  Toby  Belch,  or  Cleopatra,  or  Iago. 

CHAPTER  FOURTH 

The  Imagination 

I.    The  Creative  Imagination. 

The  Creative  Imagination  is  to  be  illustrated,  not  in 
short  passages,  but  in  larger  wholes.  Consider,  e.g.  in 
any  one  of  Shakspere's  plays  the  work  of  the  Creative 
Imagination  in  (1)  creating  the  persons  of  the  play, 
(2)  combining  them  in  such  way  as  to  exhibit  the  influ- 
ence of  each  upon  the  others,  (3)  devising  an  impressive 
action  that  shall  truthfully  illustrate  the  laws  of  human 
conduct. 

Compare  the  Fancy  as  seen  in  Shakspere's  A  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream  with  the  Imagination,  as  seen  in  As 
You  Like  It. 

Contrast  the  vividness  of  Tennyson's  imagination  as 
seen  in  description  and  scenery,  with  its  feebleness  in  the 
creation  of  character ;  e.g.  in  Maud,  The  Princess,  The 
Idylls  of  the  King. 

Compare  Browning  with  Tennyson  in  this  respect ;  e.g. 
in  Fra  Lippo,  Andrea  del  Sarto,  Pippa  Passes,  The  Ring 
and  The  Book. 

Consider  the  vividness  of  the  Creative  Imagination  hi 
the  work  of  Rudyard  Kipling,  throughout. 

The  Associative  and  the  Interpretative  forms  of  Imagi- 
nation may  be  illustrated  in  detail  from  any  of  the  poetry 
mentioned  on  the  preceding  pages ;  the  following  pas- 
sages may,  however,  be  specified  as  containing  striking  or 
beautiful  examples.  Of  course,  the  two  forms  shade  into 
each  other,  and  both  will  be  found  in  any  of  the  passages 
cited  below  ;  but  the  refei'ences  are  arranged  in  groups, 
as  one  or  the  other  form  seems  to  predominate. 


APPENDIX  325 

II.    The  Associative  Imagination. 

Shakspere.     Sonnets,  Nos.  33,  60,  73. 

Milton.  Paradise  Lost,  Book  L,  11.  520-620;  Comus, 
11.  170-229. 

Wordsworth.  "  Three  years  she  grew,"  The  Leech  Gath- 
erer, Ode  to  Duty,  "  The  icorld  is  too  much  with  us." 

Keats.  On  Fiist  Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer,  Ode  to 
a  Nightingale,  La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci. 

Shelley.  In  Lechlade  Churchyard,  To  the  Skylark,  To 
Jane  —  The  Recollection. 

Tennyson.  Ulysses,  "  Tears,  idle  tears,"  In  Memoriam 
—  §§  32,  55,  96,  121,  Rizpah,  Merlin  and  the  Gleam. 

Browning.  Love  Among  the  Ruins,  A  Toccata  of  Gal- 
uppi's,  Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  Came,  May  and 
Death,  The  Last  Ride  Together. 

Emerson.     The  Problem. 

Lowell.  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal  —  Prelude,  Com- 
memoration Ode. 

For  examples  of  the  Associative  Imagination  in  re- 
flective or  didactic  poetry,  see  Dryden's  Religio  Laid, 
Pope's  Essay  on  Man  —  Epistle  I. 

Examples  of  the  Associative  Imagination  in  various 
types  of  prose. 

1.  Florid,  emotional. 

Jeremy  Taylor.  "  Holy  Dying,"  "  Sermon  on  the  Re- 
turn of  Prayers." 

2.  Controversial,  satiric,  political. 

Swift.    "  Tale  of  a  Tub,"  §§  6,  9;  "  Examiner,"  No.  16. 
Burke.     "  A  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord." 

3.  Critical. 

Lowell.     Essays  on  "  Dante,"  "  Dryden." 

4.  Historical. 

Carlyle.  "French  Revolution,"  Vol.  n.,  Book  TV., 
ch.  VI. 

For  the  allied  form  of  Fancy. 

1.  Labored,  far-fetched,  but  sometimes  pathetic. 


326  APPENDIX 

Donne.     A  Funeral  Elegy,  The  Relic,  The  Blossom. 
Herbert.     Sunday,  Affliction,  Home. 

2.  Ingenious  or  subtle,  yet  effective. 

Emerson.     The  Sphinx,  The  Humble  Bee,  My  Garden. 
Lowell.     On  Burning  Some  Old  Letters. 

3.  Excessive,  remote,  or  obscure. 

Browning.  Another  Way  of  Love,  Love  in  a  Life, 
Women  and  Roses,  St.  Martin's  Summer,  Bad  Dreams, 
Flute  Music. 

4.  Romantic  or  graceful. 

Shakspere.  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Songs  in 
Twelfth  Night  and  in  As  You  Like  It. 

Ben  Jonson.     To  Celia,  The  Triumph  of  Charts. 

Herrick.  The  Bag  of  the  Bee,  To  Daffodils,  To  Meadows, 
Delight  in  Disorder,  Oberon's  Palace. 

Wordsworth.     To  the  Daisy,  To  the  Small  Celandine. 

Keats.     Fancy. 

III.   The  Interpretative  Imagination. 

Burns.  To  a  Mountain  Daisy,  Address  to  the  Deil, 
Highland  Mary,  "  Open  the  door  to  me,  0,"  My  Nannie's 
Awa. 

Wordsworth.  Lines  above  Tintem  Abbey,  The  Fountain, 
"  Strange  fts  of  passion  have  I  known,"  "  There  was  a 
boy,"  "  There  is  an  eminence,"  The  Solitary  Reaper,  Step- 
ping Westward,  Stanzas  on  Peele  Castle,  The  Prelude  — 
Book  First. 

Coleridge.     Frost  at  Midnight,  The  Nightingale. 

Shelley.  The  Cloud,  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  Epipsychi- 
dion,  Mont  Blanc,  Arethusa,  Evening  —  Ponle  a  Mare, 
Pisa. 

Keats.  Compare,  with  reference  to  the  interpretative 
power  of  the  imagination,  his  early  poems  with  his  later 
ones,  e.g.  "I  stood  tiptoe  upon  a  little  hill,'"  or  Endymion, 
Book  I.,  with  the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale  or  Hyperion. 

Byron.     Compare  the  imaginative  quality  of  Byron's 


APPENDIX  327 

epithets  in  some  of  his  most  famous  passages,  e.g.  Childe 
Harold,  Cantos  III.  and  IV.,  with  those  of  Keats  and 
Shelley. 

Tennyson.  Maud—  §§  1,  3,  14,  17,  18,  22;  "Break, 
break,  break,"  The  Lady  of  Shalott,  A  Dream  of  Fair 
Women,  Idyls  of  the  King  —  Guinevere,  The  Passing  of 
Arthur. 

Browning.  Andrea  del  Sarto,  An  Epistle  of  Karshish, 
The  Grammarian's  Funeral,  Two  in  the  Campagna,  Saul  — 

§19. 

Arnold.     Resignation,  Dover  Beach,  A  Summer  Night. 

Rossetti.     The  Portrait,  My  Sister's  Sleep. 

Emerson.     The  Prelude,  Woodnotes. 

Ruskin.     "Modern  Painters,"  Part  VI., chs.  IX.  and  X. 

Carlyle.  "Life  of  Sterling,"  chs.  IV.  and  V.;  "Sartor 
Resartus,"  Book  II.,  ch.  IX. 

Compare  with  the  imaginative  interpretation  of  nature 
as  seen  in  the  above  passages  from  Wordsworth,  Shelley, 
Arnold,  passages  of  pure  description,  e.g.  — 

Thomson.  The  Seasons — Spring,  11. 140-184 ;  Autumn, 
11.  1082-1102;    Winter,  11.  117-147. 

Scott.  Marmion  —  Introduction  to  Canto  II.,  Canto 
IV.,  stanza  30;  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  Canto  I.  §§  11-13. 

The  Pathetic  Fallacy. 

In  addition  to  the  examples  in  the  passages  cited  above 
from  Coleridge,  Tennyson,  Browning,  Arnold,  Rossetti, 
see  for  a  few  of  the  myriad  examples  in  Shakspere, 
Borneo  and  Juliet,  Act  II.,  sc.  2;  Act  III.,  sc.  5;  Merchant 
of  Venice,  Act  V.,  sc.  1 ;  As  You  Like  It,  Act  II. ;  King 
Lear,  Act  III. ;  Hamlet,  Act  I.,  sc.  1 ;  Act  IV.,  sc.  7 ;  Mac- 
beth, Act  I.,  sc.  5;  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  Act  IV.,  sc.  14; 
A  Winter's  Tale,  Act  IV.,  sc.  4 ;  Cymbeline,  Act  IV.,  sc.  2 ; 
The  Tempest,  Act  IV. 


328  APPENDIX 

CHAPTER  FIFTH 
The  Intellectual  Element  in  Literature 

I.  Fidelity  to  truth. 

(a)  In  historical  writing  (p.  148). 

Carlyle's  "  French  Revolution."  Consider  whether  the 
unquestionable  emotional  power  of  the  work  is  pur- 
chased at  the  cost  of  "  accuracy  and  clearness  of  informa- 
tion." 

(6)  In  pure  literature  (p.  149). 

1.  Show  how  any  of  the  poetry  or  fiction  in  the  pre- 
ceding lists  illustrates  the  demand  for  truth,  e.g.  by  a 
study  of  motive  and  conduct  in  any  one  of  Shakspere's 
plays  —  Macbeth,  Othello,  Hamlet;  or  in  a  novel  —  Scott's 
"Old  Mortality,"  Thackeray's  "Vanity  Fair,"  George 
Eliot's  "  Adam  Bede." 

2.  In  the  following  great  elegiac  poems  show  that  the 
value  and  rank  of  the  poetry  depends  not  so  much  upon 
the  expression  of  personal  grief  as  upon  the  thought 
which  underlies  the  grief,  or  the  truth  the  grief  dis- 
closes :  — 

Shelley's  Adonais,  Arnold's  Thyrsis,  Tennyson's  In 
Memoriam,  Emerson's  Threnody. 

Compare  with  these  poems,  in  this  regard,  Swinburne's 
Ave  atque  Vale. 

3.  Examine  the  thought  or  truth  which  forms  the 
basis  of  each  of  the  following  poems  :  — 

Tennyson.  The  Palace  of  Art,  The  Two  Voices, 
Ulysses. 

Browning.  Andrea  del  Sarto,  The  Epistle  of  Karshish, 
A  Grammarian's  Funeral,  The  Statue  and  the  Bust. 

Arnold.  Dover  Beach,  The  Future,  Resignation,  Starizas 
from  the  Grande  Chartreuse. 

4.  The  pure  lyric  is  the  expression  of  feeling  rather 


APPENDIX  329 

than  of  truth ;  but  compare,  with  reference  to  their  con- 
tent of  definite  thought,  the  lyrics  of  Wordsworth  with 
those  of  Shelley. 

5.  Thought  over-subtle,  recondite,  obscure  (p.  151). 
Browning.     Pauline,    Epilogue    to   Dramatis    Personal, 

Numpholeptos,  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  Ferishtah's  Fancies,  Par- 
leyings  toith  Certain  People  —  Francis  Furini. 

6.  Intellectual  basis  of  the  work,  fanciful,  doubtful, 
unsound,  partial,  or  in  some  way  incorrect  or  false 
(p.  152). 

Pope.     Essay  on  Man. 

Wordsworth.     Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality. 
Byron.     Childe  Harold,  especially  Cantos  I.,  II.,  III. ; 
The  Corsair,  Lara,  Alan/red,  Cain. 
Shelley.     Prometheus  Unbound,  Hellas. 
Tennyson.     Maud. 

Swinburne.     The  Garden  of  Proserpine. 
Hardy.     "  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles." 

II.  Fidelity  to  Fact.  —  Realism,  Romanticism,  Idealism, 
(pp.  166-181). 

(a)  Realism.  For  various  forms  and  degrees  of  real- 
ism in  treatment,  combined  with  less  or  more  of  idealism 
in  spirit,  see  — 

1.  In  prose  fiction. 

Zola's  "Lourdes,"  Tolstoi's  "Anna  Karenina,"  Balzac's 
"Pere  Goriot,"  Fielding's  "Tom  Jones,"  Thackeray's 
"Vanity  Fair,"  Jane  Austen's  "Pride  and  Prejudice," 
Howells's  "  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,"  James's  "  The 
Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  Miss  Wilkins's  "  A  New  England 
Nun,"  Kipling's  "  Soldiers  Three." 

2.  In  poetry. 

Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales  —  Prologue  and  connecting 
passages;  Burns's  The  Twa  Dogs,  To  His  Auld  Mare 
Maggie,  Halloween,  Epistle  to  Davie;  Crabbe's  Yillagr; 
Wordsworth's   The   Thorn,    The  Brothers,  Michael,  Lucy 


330  APPENDIX 

Gray,  The  Excursion,  Book  VI. ;  Kipling's  Barrack  Room 
Ballads,  Mc Andrew's  Hymn,  The  Mary  Gloster. 

(b)  Romanticism.  For  examples  of  romantic  manner, 
with  less  or  more  of  fidelity  to  truth  of  life,  see  — 

1.  In  prose  fiction  :  — 

Scott's  "  Ivanhoe,"  "  The  Talisman,"  "  Old  Mortality  "  ; 
Kingsley's  "  Westward  Ho  " ;  Stevenson's  "  David  Bal- 
four." 

2.  In  poetry. 

Shakspere's  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  The  Tempest; 
Spenser's  Faerie  Queene ;  Southey's  Thalaba;  Coleridge's 
Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner ;  Keats's  Eve  of  St.  Agnes; 
Tennyson's  Princess;  Browning's  Childe  Roland  to  the 
Dark  Tower  Came,  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess;  Morris's 
The  Earthly  Paradise;  Ilossetti's  The  Bride's  Prelude, 
The  King's  Tragedy. 

(c)  Note  how  the  characteristics  of  realism,  romanti- 
cism, and  idealism  are  combined  in  such  works  as  the 
following :  — 

Shakspere's  As  You  Like  It,  Othello,  Winter's  Tale; 
Scott's  Marmion,  Lady  of  the  Lake;  Byron's  Childe  Harold, 
Cantos  III.  and  IV. ;  Browning's  Pippa  Passes,  Colombe's 
Birthday,  The  Ring  and  The  Book;  Tennyson's  Idyls  of  the 
King;  Lowell's  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal;  Scott's  "Heart  of 
Midlothian,"  "  Quentin  Durward  " ;  Thackeray's  "  Henry 
Esmond " ;  Hawthorne's  "  Scarlet  Letter,"  "  Marble 
Faun";  George  Eliot's  "  Adam  Bede,"  "  Romola." 

CHAPTER  SIXTH 

The  Formal  Element  in  Literature 

P.  193.  For  examples  of  the  disparity  between  feeling 
and  form  in  Browning,  see  not  only  poems  like  Pauline, 
Love  in  a  Life,  Another  Way  of  Love,  Numpholcptos,  Fifine 
at  the  Fair,  Rephun,  but  also  short  passages  in  his  best 


APPENDIX  331 

works,  as  Saul,  In  a  Year,  In  a  Balcony,  A  Death  in  the 
Desert,  Lyric  Love  (closing  lines  of  the  first  section  of 
The  Ring  and  The  Book). 

P.  194.  For  characteristic  specimens  of  Macaulay's 
energy,  see  his  essays  on  "  Milton,"  "  Boswell's  Johnson," 
"  Chatham  " ;  "  History  of  England,"  chs.  VI.,  VII.,  X. 

For  other  examples  of  energy  'without  delicacy  or 
temperance,  see  Carlyle's  "Past  and  Present,"  Book  I., 
chs.  I.-V.,  XV.,  "  Latter  Day  Pamphlets,"  1,  6,  8 ;  Bus- 
kin's "  Crown  of  Wild  Olive,"  Introduction,  "Fors  Clavi- 
gera,"  Letters  3,  4,  5. 

For  characteristic  specimens  of  Pater's  delicacy,  see  his 
"  The  Child  in  the  House,"  "  Diaphaneite,"  "  Marius  the 
Epicurean,"  especially  Parts  I.  and  III. 

P.  197.  For  the  style  of  Addison  and  Swift,  see  — 
Addison.  "  The  Sir  Boger  de  Cover  ley  Papers " 
("Spectator,"  Nos.  106,  112,  122,  269,  329,  335),  "On  the 
Opera  "  ("  Spectator,"  13),  "  Party  Patches  "  ("  Spectator," 
81),  "A  Lady's  Library"  ("Spectator,"  37), "Ned Softly" 
("Tatler,"163),  "On  Taste"  ("Spectator,"  409). 

Swift.  "  The  Examiner,"  Nos.  13,  16 ;  "  Letter  to  a 
Young  Clergyman  " ;  "  Tale  of  a  Tub,"  §§  2,  4,  6  ;  "Dra- 
pier's  Letters,"  Nos.  1,  4. 

P.  199.  For  examples  of  "  ease  "  in  style,  see  the  pas- 
sages from  Addison  above  cited ;  also,  Thackeray's 
"Boundabout  Papers,"  "Henry  Esmond,"  "English 
Humourists." 

P.  200.   Naturalness,  simplicity. 

Burns.  Auld  Lang  Syne,  Bonnie  Doon,  Tarn  Glen,  To 
a  Louse,  The  Twa  Dogs. 

Wordsworth.  Michael,  The  Fountain,  The  Reverie  of 
Poor  Susan,  The  Brothers,  The  Story  of  Margaret  (Excur- 
sion, Book  I.,  11.  511-916). 


332  APPENDIX 

Compare  with  the  simplicity  of  these  poems  the  studied 
simplicity  of  Tennyson's  Dora ;  or,  with  Wordsworth's 
Michael,  the  ornate  treatment  of  a  similar  homely  theme 
in  Tennyson's  Enoch  Arden. 

Compare  with  these  examples  of  simplicity  of  treatment 
of  homely  themes,  the  dignified  simplicity  of  treatment  of 
an  heroic  theme  in  Arnold's  Sohrab  and  Rustum. 

P.  203.  Examples  of  the  lack  of  artistic  form,  —  defi- 
nite outline  or  conception  as  a  whole. 

Spenser's  Faerie  Queene;  Wordsworth's  Excursion,  or 
any  one  of  its  books ;  Keats's  Endymion. 

P.  204.  Consider  the  ways  in  which  various  motives 
and  different  series  of  actions  are  so  combined  and  sub- 
ordinated as  to  produce  unity  of  total  effect  in  Shak- 
spere's  Merchant  of  Venice,  Henry  IV.,  As  You  Like  It, 
King  Lear. 

P.  207.  Consider  whether  these  famous  shorter  poems 
are  in  any  respects  open  to  criticism  for  lack  of  either 
completeness,  method,  or  harmony:  — 

Milton's  Lycidas;  Collins's  Ode  to  Evening;  Burns's 
Cotter's  Saturday  Night ;  Wordsworth's  Simon  Lee ;  Cole- 
ridge's Christabel;  Keats's  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn;  Tenny- 
son's Maud;  Browning's  Old  Pictures  in  Florence,  By  a 
Fireside,  One  Word  More ;  Arnold's  Tristam  and  Iseult. 

As  examples  of  unity  —  completeness,  method,  and 
harmony  —  in  various  forms  of  prose,  see  — 

Addison.  "  Reflections  in  Westminster  Abbey  "  ("  Spec- 
tator,1' 26). 

Burke.     "  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord." 

Lamb.     "  Dream  Children." 

Hazlitt.  "  Of  Persons  One  would  wish  to  have 
Known." 

Carlyle.  "  Essay  on  Diderot,"  "  Coleridge  "  ("  Life  of 
Sterling,"  ch.  VIII.). 


APPENDIX  333 

Ruskin.  "Lecture  on  Work"  ("Crown  of  Wild 
Olive  "),  "  The  Relation  of  Art  to  Morals  "  ("  Lectures 
on  Art  "). 

Arnold.     "  Essay  on  Falkland,"  "  Lecture  on  Emerson." 

Newman.  "  The  Danger  of  Accomplishments,"  "  The 
Invisible  World,"  "  Unreal  Words  "  ("  Plain  and  Parochial 
Sermons"). 

Thackeray.     "De  Finibus"  ("Roundabout  Papers"). 

Lowell.     "  On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners." 

Lincoln.     "  Gettysburg  Address." 

P.  208.  Where  is  the  point  of  emotional  climax  in 
Shakspere's  Romeo  and  Juliet  ?  Hamlet  ?  King  Lear  ?  In 
Browning's  Saulf 

P.  210.  Note  the  harmony  of  time,  scene,  atmosphere, 
with  the  action  in  Shakspere's  Hamlet,  King  Lear,  Mac- 
beth, Merchant  of  Venice. 

Note  the  adaptation  of  metrical  form  to  sentiment  in 
the  following  poems  :  — 

Milton's  L' Allegro,  11  Penseroso ;  Ben  Jonson's  "It  is 
not  growing  like  a  Tree";  Herrick's  Daffodils;  Dryden's 
Ode  on  St.  Cecilia's  Day ;  Gray's  Elegy  in  a  Country 
Churchyard;  Wordsworth's  Highland  Reaper;  Shelley's 
Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  The  Sensitive  Plant ;  Keats's  Ode  to 
a  Nightingale,  On  First  looking  into  Chapman's  Homer ; 
Tennyson's  The  Lotos  Eaters,  Songs  in  The  Princess,  Morte 
d' Arthur,  Merlin  and  the  Gleam;  Browning's  Saul,  Love 
Among  the  Ruins,  James  Lee's  Wife;  Swinburne's  By  the 
North  Sea. 

CHAPTER  SEVENTH 

Poetry 

P.  240.  The  Diction  of  Poetry.  The  "  poetic  diction  " 
of  the  eighteenth  century  to  which  Wordsworth  objected, 
may  be  seen  in  such  passages  as  the  following :  — 


334  APPENDIX 

Pope.  Windsor  Forest,  11.  135-164;  Essay  on  Man, 
Book  I.,  11.  207-246. 

Thomson.  The  Seasons,  Spring,  11.  1-48,  136-220; 
Summer,  11.  81-139,  1093-1144. 

Young.  Night  Thoughts,  Night  First,  11.  78-106;  Night 
Second,  11.  623-707. 

Gray.  On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College,  stanzas 
6-10;  Sonnet  on  the  Death  of  Richard  West. 

Akenside.  The  Pleasures  of  Imagination,  Book  I., 
11.  1-30,  438-566. 

Johnson.     The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  11.  1-20. 

P.  243.  "Poetry  is  entirely,  prose  only  in  part,  the 
utterance  of  emotion."  Is  this  statement  contz-adicted  or 
confirmed  by  such  passages  as  the  following :  — 

Wordsworth's  Excursion,  Book  IV.,  11.  197-227,  Book 
V.,  11.  309-330,  485-529. 

Browning's  La  Saisiaz,  Ferishtah's  Fancies  —  A  Bean 
Stripe. 

Pp.  253-257.     Quantity  and  Accent. 

Examples  of  vigor  and  grace  of  movement,  or  of  special 
adaptation  of  movement  to  sentiment,  secured  by  changes 
in  the  number  of  syllables  within  feet  of  the  same  length, 
or  by  shifting  the  accent,  may  be  found  in  any  verse  at  all 
flexible;  a  few  noteworthy  passages  are  mentioned  here. 

Shakspere.  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Act  II.,  sc.  1, 
11.  150-174,  259-269;  /  Henry  IV.,  Act  I.,  sc.  3;  As  You 
Like  It,  Act  II.,  sc.  1,  11.  1-18;  Hamlet,  Act  III.,  sc.  1; 
Othello,  Act  I.,  sc.  3,  11.  76-170;  Antony  and  Cleopatra, 
Act  IV.,  sc.  14,  11.  1-54,  Act  IV.,  sc.  15,  11.  72-91 ;  A 
Winter's  Tale,  Act  III.,  sc.  2,  11.  20-113,  Act  IV.,  sc.  4,  11. 
110-146;  Songs  in  As  You  Like  It,  Twelfth  Night,  The 
Tempest. 

Milton.  V Allegro,  II  Penseroso,  Comus,  especially  such 
lines  as  8,  125-143,  976-1023. 

Coleridge.     Christabel. 


APPENDIX  335 

Wordsworth.     Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality. 

Shelley.  Alastor,  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  The  Cloud, 
Ozymandias,  With  a  Guitar,  To  Jane,  "  Swiftly  walk  over 
the  ivestern  zcave,"  "0  world,  Olife,  Otime,"  u  Rarely  comest 
thou,"  "Madonna,  wherefore  hast  thou  sent  to  me." 

Tennyson.  The  Lady  of  Shalott,  The  Lotos  Eaters, 
Ulysses,  11.  54-58,  "Break,  break,  break,"  The  Princess  — 
Prologue,  11.  20-25;  I.,  11.  86,  97-99,  165-166,  215;  II.,  11. 
169-172,  357,  451-452 ;  III.,  11.  8,  274-275,  338-347 ;  IV., 
11.  160-162,  461,  501-505 ;  V.,  11.  336-340,  490-494,  512- 
518,  530-531 ;  VII.,  11.  200-208,  210-215,  and  many  other 
similar  lines  throughout;  Maud  and  The  Idyls  of  the 
King,  passim ;  Merlin  and  the  Gleam. 

Browning.  Love  Among  the  Ruins,  A  Toccata  of 
GaluppVs,  In  a  Gondola,  James  Lee's  Wife.  Browning's 
blank  verse  is  remarkably  free  and  flexible ;  examples  of 
the  variation  of  movement  to  suit  the  sentiment  may  be 
found  in  any  twenty  lines  of  Andrea  del  Sarto,  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi,  In  a  Balcony,  The  Ring  and  The  Book. 

Arnold.  The  verse  of  Arnold,  more  largely  perhaps 
than  that  of  any  other  modern  English  poet,  disregards 
conventional  metrical  forms,  and  illustrates  subtle  effects 
of  quantity;  see,  for  example,  The  Strayed  Reveller, 
Sohrab  and  Rustum  —  last  fifteen  lines,  Dover  Beach,  Bac- 
chanalia, The  Youth  of  Nature,  The  Youth  of  Man,  The 
Future,  Rugby  Chapel. 

Pp.  259-262.     Pitch  and  Melody. 

The  passages  cited  on  the  last  two  pages  from  Shak- 
spere,  Milton,  Shelley,  Tennyson,  Arnold,  and  Swin- 
burne are  excellent  examples  of  melody.  For  other  and 
varied  examples  see  — 

Shakspere.     Sonnets  15,  29,  30,  33,  60,  66,  71,  73. 

Milton.  Ode  on  the  Nativity;  Comus,  11.  1-18,  249-270, 
890-920;  Paradise  Lost,  Book  I.,  11.  283-330,  520-620, 
Book  IV,  11.  131-171,  589-608,  640-056. 


336  APPENDIX 

Spenser.  Faerie  Queene,  Book  I.,  Canto  I.,  stanza  40, 
Book  II.,  Canto  VI.,  stanzas  10-13,  Canto  XII.,  stanzas 
30-33. 

Herrick.     To  Meadows,  To  Violets. 

Burns.  "Open  (he  door  to  me,  O,"  My  Nannie's  Awa, 
The  Braes  o'  Ballochmyle,  Highland  Mary,  The  Banks  o' 
Doon. 

Coleridge.  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,  11.  357- 
372,  460-480  ;  Kubla  Khan. 

Byron.  Childe  Harold,  Canto  III.,  stanzas  87-90,  101, 
Canto  IV.,  stanzas  79-82,  178-189. 

Keats.     La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci. 

Shelley.  uMy  soul  is  an  enchanted  boat"  (Prometheus 
Unbound,  Act  III.),  The  Skylark,  Arethusa,  "Music  when 
soft  voices  die." 

Tennyson.  "  Break,  break,  break  " ;  Songs  in  The  Prin- 
cess;  In  Memoriam,  11,  15,  32,  67,  86,  121;  Maud,  "  Come 
into  the  garden,  Maud  "  ;  Crossing  the  Bar. 

Clough.  The  Stream  of  Life,  Dipsychus —  sc.  ii.,  In  a 
Gondola. 

Swinburne.  Atalanta  in  Calydon,  first  chorus;  The 
Garden  of  Proserpine,  A  Forsaken  Garden,  March. 

Morris.  The  Wind,  Summer  Dawn,  The  Half  of  Life 
Gone,  The  Plaint  of  the  Wood  Sun  ("  House  of  the 
Wolfings,"  XVII.). 

Rossetti.  The  Blessed  Damosel,  A  New  Year's  Burden, 
Cloud  Confines. 

P.  266.  Compare,  with  respect  to  movement,  melody, 
division  into  phrases  and  paragraphs,  the  blank  verse  of 
Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  Browning. 

Pp.  268-269.  The  effects  of  Alliteration  and  Asso- 
nance may  be  studied  in  any  of  the  passages  just  cited 
as  examples  of  melody,  and  in  those  cited  (p.  333)  as 
examples  of  the  adaptation  of  metre  to  sentiment;  espe- 


APPENDIX  337 

cially,  in  both  lists,  those  from  Shakspere,  Milton,  Cole- 
ridge, Tennyson,  Swinburne. 

Note  especially  the  musical  effect  of  the  vowels  in  the 
verse  of  Milton  and  Tennyson,  the  preference  of  both 
poets  for  the  open  vowels,  and  the  characteristic  effects 
each  poet  secures  by  then*  use.  Note,  however,  the 
difference  in  their  choice  of  consonants,  —  Tennyson's 
preference  for  liquids  and  labials,  for  the  softer  and 
more  delaying  consonantal  sounds. 

Consider  whether  in  Swinburne's  verse  alliteration  and 
assonance  —  especially  the  former  —  are  not  overworked, 
and  sometimes  secured  only  at  some  expense  of  meaning. 

On  the  other  hand,  note  the  appropriateness  of  such 
devices  in  the  more  artificial  and  dainty  forms  of  verse. 
Very  charming  and  very  skillful  instances  may  be  seen, 
e.g.,  in  Dobson's  With  Pipe  and  Flute,  To  a  Greek  Girl, 
With  a  Copy  of  Theocritus. 

CHAPTER  EIGHTH 

Prose  Fiction 

P.  288.  For  a  statement  of  these  objections  to  the  ele< 
ment  of  plot  in  fiction,  see  Howells's  "  Criticism  and 
Fiction,"  chs.  IV.,  XX.,  XXI. 

P.  289.  For  examples  of  the  charm  of  narrative,  more 
or  less  romantic,  but  in  every  case  illustrative  of  char- 
acter and  life,  see  — 

Scott's  "  Old  Mortality,"  "  The  Talisman  " ;  Thackeray's 
"Henry  Esmond";  Hawthorne's  "Marble  Faun";  Ste- 
venson's "David  Balfour,"  "The  Master  of  Ballantrae"; 
Crawford's  "  Saracinesca,"  "  A  Roman  Singer  " ;  Hardy's 
"The  Return  of  the  Native";  Barrie's  "The  Little 
Minister." 

Consider,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  the  following 


338  APPENDIX 

novels  do  not  suffer  for  lack  of  the  interest  in  plot, — 
a  story  with  definite  progress  and  outcome. 

James's  "  Washington  Square,"  "  The  Europeans,"  "  A 
Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  "  The  Awkward  Age  " ;  Howells's 
"A  Modern  Instance,"  "The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham"; 
Allen's  (James  Lane),  "  The  Choir  Invisible." 

P.  290.  "  The  value  of  a  novel  wTill  depend  .  .  .  upon 
the  amount  and  the  rank  of  the  life  it  can  portray." 

Consider  the  relative  value,  measured  by  this  standard, 
of  such  different  types  of  the  novel  as  — 

Scott's  "Old  Mortality,"  "Heart  of  Midlothian"; 
Thackeray's  "  Vanity  Fair,"  "  The  Newcomes  " ;  Haw- 
thorne's "  The  House  of  Seven  Gables,"  "  The  Scarlet 
Letter";  Jane  Austen's  "Pride  and  Prejudice,"  "Mans- 
field Park  " ;  Howells's  "  A  Modern  Instance,"  "  The  Rise 
of  Silas  Lapham." 

Pp.  294-296.  Compare  the  different  ways  of  using  the 
motive  of  love  in  the  following  novels :  — 

Scott's  "Old  Mortality";  Thackeray's  "The  New- 
comes";  George  Eliot's  "Adam  Bede";  Meredith's 
"Richard  Feverel";  Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter"; 
Hardy's  "Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles " ;  Caine's  "The 
Manxman." 

In  the  last  two  novels,  notice  the  type  of  character  in 
the  heroine  made  necessary  by  the  treatment  of  the  cen- 
tral motive.  For  the  same  result  in  an  earlier  novel,  see 
Richardson's  "  Pamela." 

The  later  novels  of  Hardy  and  Caine  will  also  illus- 
trate the  note  of  depression,  of  pessimistic  fatalism,  in 
much  of  modern  fiction. 

Pp.  303-305.  For  examples  of  an  objective  manner  of 
treatment,  dramatic  vividness  of  presentation,  swiftness 
and  directness  of  movement,  see  — 


APPENDIX  339 

Defoe's  "Robinson  Crusoe";  Scott's  "The  Talisman"; 
Stevenson's  "David  Balfour,"  "The  Master  of  Ballan- 
trae  " ;  Crawford's  "  Saracinesca,"  "  A  Roman  Singer  " ; 
Kipling's  "Soldiers  Three,"  "Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills," 
"  Captains  Courageous." 

Pp.  309.  For  the  qualities  here  described  —  breadth, 
lifelikeness,  sense  of  reality — there  are  few  novels  supe- 
rior to  Thackeray's  "  Vanity  Fair  "  and  "  The  Newcomes." 
For  the  same  sense  of  reality  and  familiar  acquaintance 
with  the  persons  of  the  story,  but  in  a  narrower  circle 
of  interests  and  with  less  emotional  power,  see  Jane 
Austen's  "  Pride  and  Prejudice,"  "  Mansfield  Park." 


AUTHORS  AND  WORKS  CITED  IN  THE  ILLUS- 
TRATIVE REFERENCES 

Poetry 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  1340  ?-1400.     The  Canterbury  Tales. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  1552-1599.     The  Faerie  Queene. 

Shakspere,  William,  1564-1616.  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  The  Merchant  of  Venice, 
Henry  IV.,  As  You  Like  It,  Twelfth  Night,  Hamlet, 
Othello,  King  Lear,  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  A  Winter's 
Tale,  The  Tempest,  Sonnets  29,  30,  33,  60,  73,  110,  146. 

Jonson,  Ben,  1573-1637.  To  Celia,  The  Triumph  of 
Charis,  "  It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree." 

Donne,  John,  1573-1631.  A  Funeral  Elegy,  The  Relic, 
The  Blossom. 

Webster,  John,  ?-?.     The  Duchess  of  Malfy. 

Milton,  John,  1608-1674.  Ode  on  the  Nativity,  L' Al- 
legro, II  Penseroso,  Comus,  Lycidas,  Paradise  Lost, 
Books  I.,  IV.,  Samson  Agonistes,  Sonnet  On  His  Blind- 
ness. 


340  APPENDIX 

Herrick,  Robert,  1591-1674.  The  Bag  of  the  Bee,  To 
Daffodils,  To  Meadows,  Delight  in  Disorder,  Oberon's 
Palace. 

Herbert,  George,  1593-1633.     Sunday,  Affliction,  Home. 

Dryden,  John,  1631-1700.  Religio  Laici,  Ode  on  Saint 
Cecilia's  Day. 

Prior,  Matthew,  1664-1728.  To  Chloe  Jealous,  To  a 
Child  of  Quality. 

Young,  Edward,  1684-1765.     Night  Thoughts. 

Pope,  Alexander,  1688-1744.     Essay  on  Man. 

Thomson,  James,  1700-1748.     The  Seasons. 

Gray,  Thomas,  1716-1771.  Elegy  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard, On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College,  Sonnet  on 
the  Death  of  Richard  West. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  1709-1784.  The  Vanity  of  Human 
"Wishes. 

Collins,  William,  1721-1759.     Ode  to  Evening. 

Akenside,  Mark,  1721-1770.  The  Pleasures  of  the 
Imagination. 

Cowper,  William,  1731-1800.    My  Mary,  The  Castaway. 

Crabbe,  George,  1754-1832.     The  Village. 

Burns,  Robert,  1759-1796.  The  Twa  Dogs,  Epistle  to 
Davie,  Address  to  the  Deil,  Halloween,  To  His  Auld  Mare 
Maggie,  To  a  Louse,  To  a  Mountain  Daisy,  The  Jolly 
Beggars,  The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,  Tarn  Glen,  My 
Nannie's  Awa,  "  Open  the  door  to  me,  O,"  Farewell  to 
Nancy,  Bonnie  Doon,  Auld  Lang  Syne,  Highland  Mary, 
The  Braes  o'  Ballochmyle. 

Wordsworth,  William,  1770-1850.  The  Thorn,  Lines 
above  Tintern  Abbey,  Alice  Fell,  The  Idiot  Boy,  The 
Reverie  of  Poor  Susan,  Simon  Lee,  "  She  dwelt  among  the 
untrodden  ways,"  "  Strange  fits  of  passion  I  have  known," 
"Three  years  she  grew,"  Lucy  Gray,  Michael,  The  Brothers, 
The  Leech  Gatherer,  The  Fountain,  To  the  Daisy,  To  the 
Small  Celandine,  "There  is  an  eminence,"  Stanzas  on 
Peele  Castle,  "  There  was  a  boy,"  The  Highland  Reaper, 


APPENDIX  341 

Stepping  Westward,  Ode  to  Duty,  Ode  on  the  Intimations 
of  Immortality,  "  The  world  is  too  much  with  us,"  The 
Excursion,  The  Prelude,  Book  I. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  1772-1834.  The  Rime  of 
the  Ancient  Mariner,  Christabel,  Frost  at  Midnight,  The 
Nightingale,  Kubla  Khan. 

Scott,  Walter,  1771-1832.  Marmion,  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake. 

Southey,  Robert,  1774-1843.     Thalaba. 

Byron,  George  Gordon,  Lord,  1788-1824.  Childe  Har- 
old, The  Corsair,  Lara,  Manfred,  Cain,  "  On  this  day  I 
complete  my  thirty-sixth  year." 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  1792-1822.  Alastor,  To  Mont 
Blanc,  In  Lechlade  Churchyard,  To  the  West  Wind,  The 
Cloud,  The  Skylark,  The  Sensitive  Plant,  Lines  Written  in 
Dejection  near  Naples,  The  Cenci,  Prometheus  Unbound, 
Arethusa,  Ozymandias,  Adonais,  Epipsychidion,  Evening 
—  Ponte  a  Mare,  To  Jane  —  The  Recollection,  Hellas, 
"  Rarely,  rarely  comest  thou,  Spirit  of  Delight,"  "  Ma- 
donna, wherefore  hast  thou  sent  to  me  ?  "  "  Music  when 
soft  voices  die,"  "O  world,  O  life,  O  time." 

Keats,  John,  1795-1821.  "  I  stood  tiptoe  upon  a  little 
hill,"  On  First  Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer,  En- 
dymion,  Book  I.,  Lamia,  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  Ode  to 
a  Nightingale,  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn,  Fancy,  Hyperion, 
La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  1803-1882.  The  Sphinx,  The 
Problem,  The  Humble  Bee,  My  Garden,  Woodnotes, 
Threnody. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  1809-1892.  A  Dream  of  Fair 
Women,  The  Palace  of  Art,  The  Lady  of  Shalott,  The 
Lotos  Eaters,  Locksley  Hall,  Ulysses,  The  Two  Voices, 
The  Princess,  In  Memoriam,  Maud,  Idyls  of  the  King, 
Enoch  Arden,  The  Northern  Farmer,  Rizpah,  Crossing 
the  Bar,  Merlin  and  the  Gleam. 

Browning,    Robert,    1812-1889.      Pippa    Passes,    Love 


342  APPENDIX 

Among  the  Ruins,  A  Toccata  of  Galuppi's,  Old  Pictures  in 
Florence,  Saul,  By  the  Fireside,  Two  in  the  Campagna, 
Another  Way  of  Love,  Love  in  a  Life,  In  a  Year,  Women 
and  Roses,  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  Colombe's  Birth- 
day, In  a  Gondola,  The  Last  Ride  Together,  The  Flight 
of  the  Duchess,  The  Statue  and  the  Bust,  Childe  Roland 
to  the  Dark  Tower  Came,  An  Epistle  of  Karshish, 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  Bishop  Bloughram's  Apology,  One 
Word  More,  In  a  Balcony,  James  Lee's  Wife,  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra,  A  Death  in  the  Desert,  Confessions,  May  and 
Death,  Epilogue  to  Dramatis  Personas,  La  Saisiaz,  Fifine 
at  the  Fair,  St.  Martin's  Summer,  Bad  Dreams,  Numpho- 
leptos,  Ferishtah's  Fancies,  Parleyings  with  Certain  Peo- 
ple —  Francis  Furini,  Flute  Music,  Rephan. 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  1819-1861.  Dipsychus,  The 
Stream  of  Life. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  1819-1891.  The  Vision  of  Sir 
Launfal,  The  Commemoration  Ode,  On  Burning  Some 
Old  Letters. 

Locker  (Locker-Lampson),  Frederick,  1821-1895.  To 
My  Grandmother,  St.  James  Street. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  1822-1888.  The  Strayed  Reveller, 
Sohrab  and  Rustum,  Resignation,  Dover  Beach,  The 
Future,  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  A  Summer 
Night,  Bacchanalia,  The  Youth  of  Nature,  The  Youth  of 
Man,  Thyrsis,  Rugby  Chapel,  Tristram  and  Iseult. 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  1828-1882.  The  Blessed 
Damosel,  My  Sister's  Sleep,  The  Portrait,  The  King's 
Tragedy,  The  Bride's  Prelude,  A  New  Year's  Burden, 
Cloud  Confines. 

Morris,  William,  1834-1896.  The  Haystack  in  the 
Floods,  The  Wind,  Summer  Dawn,  The  Earthly  Paradise 
—  The  Man  Born  to  be  King,  The  Land  East  of  the  Sun 
and  West  of  the  Moon,  The  Watching  of  the  Falcon, 
The  Half  of  Life  Gone,  The  Plaint  of  the  Wood  Sun 
(House  of  the  Wolfings). 


APPENDIX  343 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  1837-  .  The  Gar- 
den of  Proserpine,  Atalanta  in  Calydon,  Ave  atque  Vale, 
By  the  North  Sea,  A  Forsaken  Garden,  March. 

Dobson,  Austin,  1840-  .  Tu  Quoque,  Dorothy, 
Cupid's  Alley,  Triolets,  With  Pipe  and  Flute,  To  a  Greek 
Girl,  With  a  Copy  of  Theocritus. 

Bunner,  Henry  Cuyler,  1855-1896.  The  Way  to 
Arcady. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  1865-  .  Barrack  Boom  Ballads, 
McAndrew's  Hymn,  The  Mary  Gloster. 

Prose 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  1613-1667.  Holy  Dying,  Sermon  on 
the  Return  of  Prayers. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  1661-1731.     Robinson  Crusoe. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  1667-1745.  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  An 
Argument  against  Abolishing  Christianity,  The  Exam- 
iner, The  Drapier's  Letters,  Nos.  1,  4,  Gulliver's  Travels, 
A  Letter  to  a  Young  Clergyman. 

Addison,  Joseph,  1672-1719.  The  Spectator,  Nos.  13, 
26,  37,  81,  106,  112,  122,  269,  329,  335,  409.  The  Tatler, 
No.  163. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  1689-1761.     Pamela. 

Fielding,  Henry,  1707-1754.     Tom  Jones. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  1709-1784.  Introduction  to  The 
Works  of  Shakespeare. 

Burke,  Edmund,  1729  ?-1797.  Speech  on  Conciliation 
with  America,  Speech  to  the  Bristol  Electors,  Reflec- 
tions on  the  Revolution  in  France,  Letter  to  a  Noble 
Lord. 

Scott,  Walter,  1771-1832.  Ivanhoe,  The  Talisman,  Old 
Mortality,  The  Heart  of  Midlothian,  Quentin  Durward, 
The  Bride  of  Lammermoor. 

Austen,  Jane,  1775-1817.  Pride  and  Prejudice,  Sense 
and  Sensibility,  Mansfield  Park. 


344  APPENDIX 

Lamb,  Charles,  1775-1834.  Dream  Children  (Essays 
of  Elia). 

Hazlitt,  William,  1778-1830.  Of  Persons  One  would 
Wish  to  have  Known  (Winterslow). 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  1795-1881.  Sartor  Resartus,  Past 
and  Present,  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  Essay  on 
Diderot,  Life  of  Sterling,  Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  Nos.  1, 
6,  8. 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  1800-1859.  Essays : 
Addison,  Boswell's  Johnson,  Chatham;  History  of  Eng- 
land. 

Newman,  John  Henry,  1801-1890.  The  Danger  of 
Accomplishments,  The  Invisible  World,  Unreal  Words 
(Plain  and  Parochial  Sermons). 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  1801-1864.  The  Scarlet  Letter, 
The  Marble  Faun. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  1809-1865.     Gettysburg  Address. 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  1811-1863.  Vanity 
Fair,  The  Newcomes,  Henry  Esmond,  The  Roundabout 
Papers. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  1819-1875.     Westward  Ho. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  1819-1891.  Essays :  Dante, 
Dryden,  On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners. 

Ruskin,  John,  1819-  .  Modern  Painters,  The  Crown 
of  Wild  Olive,  Fors  Clavigera,  I.- VI. 

Eliot,  George  (Mary  Ann  Evans  Cross),  1820-1881. 
Adam  Bede,  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,  Romola. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  1822-1888.  Essay  on  Falkland,  Lec- 
ture on  Emerson. 

Meredith,  George,  1828-        .     Richard  Feverel. 

Howells,  William  Dean,  1837-  .  The  Rise  of  Silas 
Lapham,  A  Modern  Instance,  Criticism  and  Fiction. 

Pater,  Walter  Horatio,  1839-1894.  Marius  the  Epi- 
curean, The  Child  in  the  House,  Diaphaneite. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  1840-  .  The  Return  of  the  Native, 
Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles,  Jude  the  Obscure. 


APPENDIX 


345 


James,  Henry,  1843-  .  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady, 
Washington  Square,  The  Europeans,  The  Awkward  Age. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  1845-1891.  David  Balfour, 
The  Master  of  Ballantrae. 

Allen,  James  Lane,  1849-        .     The  Choir  Invisible. 

Caine  (Thomas  Henry),  Hall,  1853-  .  The  Manx- 
man. 

Crawford,  Francis  Marion,  1854-  .  Saracinesca,  A 
Roman  Singer. 

Barrie,  James  Matthew,  1860-  .  The  Little 
Minister. 

Wilkins,  Mary  Eleanor,  1862-  .  A  New  England 
Nun  and  Other  Stories. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  1865-  .  Plain  Tales  from  the 
Hills,  Soldiers  Three,  Captains  Courageous. 


INDEX 


This  Index  contains  the  names  of  all  authors  mentioned  in  the  text,  or 
cited  in  the  Illustrative  References  of  the  Appendix.  Bold-faced  figures 
refer  to  the  passages  cited  in  the  Illustrative  References. 


Addison,  relation  to  his  age,  3  ; 
on  Spenser,  20;  emotional 
lapses  in  Cato,  93;  shallow- 
ness, 173;  style,  197;  ease, 
331 ;  unity,  332. 

Akenside,  "poetic  diction," 
334. 

Allen,  J.  L.,  lack  of  plot,  338. 

Amiel,  Journal  Intime,  quoted, 
69. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  on  Pope,  19, 
23;  on  poetry,  53;  classic 
manner,  224 ;  defines  poetry, 
230 ;  relation  to  his  age,  247 ; 
criticism  on  his  own  Emped- 
ocles,  298 ;  quoted,  16,  70, 107, 
134,  135,  155,  188 ;  pathos,  in 
elegiac  verse,  318;  in  verse 
ofdouht,319;  interpretative 
imagination,  327 ;  intellec- 
tual element  in,  328 ;  dig- 
nity, 332 ;  unity,  method, 
333 ;  effects  of  quantity, 
335. 

Austen,  Jane,  168;  realism, 
329;  lifelikeness,  339. 

Balzac,  realism,  329. 
Blackmore,  R.   D.,  excess    of 

description,  307. 
Boswell,  charm  of,  309. 
Brooke,  S.,  defines  literature, 

36. 


Browning,  Mrs.  E.  B.,  Aurora 
Leigh,  238. 

Browning,  Rohert,  deficient  in 
expression,  90;  pathetic  fal- 
lacy in  Epistle  of  Karshish, 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  137,  138; 
motives  recondite,  151 ;  ob- 
scurity, 212;  defines  poetry, 
230;  on  relation  of  emotion 
to  life,  246;  relation  to  his 
age,  247;  double  rhymes, 
264;  dramas,  280;  quoted, 
136,  137,  138,  264 ;  painful  or 
pathetic  experiences  in  his 
verse,  318;  vividness,  320; 
range,  322 ;  imagination  com- 
pared with  Tennyson's,  324 ; 
remote  or  obscure  fancy,  326 ; 
interpretative  imagination, 
327;  truth  in,  328;  over- 
subtle,  329 ;  romanticism 
with  realism,  330 ;  lacks 
sense  of  form,  332;  and 
harmony,  333 ;  metre  and 
sentiment,  333 ;  effects  of 
quantity,  335. 

Brunetiere,  F.,  on  impression- 
ism, 315. 

Bunner,  H.  C,  vers  de  societe, 
322. 

Burke,  Edmund,  style,  91 ; 
quoted,  151 ;  vividness  or 
power,  320 ;   associative  im- 


347 


348 


INDEX 


agination,  325;  unity,  meth- 
od, 332. 

Burns,  range  of  his  lyrics,  99; 
naturalness,  199 ;  quoted,  136, 
199,  256;  melancholy,  319; 
intensity,  320 ;  interpreta- 
tive imagination,  326;  real- 
ism, 329;  simplicity,  331; 
melody,  336. 

Byron,  his  poetry  subjective, 
12;  romantic  poems  (1813- 
1818)  abnormal,  83;  force, 
89 ;  moral  quality,  114 ;  com- 
pared with  Scott,  157 ;  ob- 
scurity in,  213 ;  unsteadiness 
of  emotional  effects,  217; 
double  rhymes,  264 ;  melan- 
choly, 319  ;  insincerity,  319 ; 
power,  320 ;  emotional  lapses, 
321 ;  imagination  compared 
with  that  of  Keats  and  Shel- 
ley, 327  ;  lack  of  truth,  329  ; 
romanticism  with  realism, 
idealism,  330 ;  melody,  336. 

Caine,  Hall,  treatment  of  love, 
338;  tone  of,  338. 

Carlyle,  vividness,  92;  limita- 
tions, 99;  historic  value  of 
French  Revolution,!^. ; quot- 
ed, 149;  power  of  emotional 
effects,  320;  associative  im- 
agination, 325 ;  interpreta- 
tive imagination,  327 ;  en- 
ergy, 331 ;  unity,  method, 
332. 

Chapman,  George,  quoted,  89. 

Chaucer,  his  method,  306; 
realism  of,  329. 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  melan- 
choly, 319 ;  melody,  336. 

Coleridge,  criticism  on,  9; 
Kubla  Khan,  103;  imagina- 
tion in  Christabel,  135 ;  truth 
of    Ancient    Mariner,    158; 


could  not  be  prolonged,  179 ; 
on  poetry,  231,  235;  vivid- 
ness, 329 ;  steadiness  of 
emotion,  321 ;  rank  of  ro- 
mantic verse,  322 ;  interpre- 
tative imagination,  326 ; 
Christabel,  incomplete,  332 ; 
effects  of  quantity,  335 ; 
melody,  336. 

Collins,  William,  harmony, 
332. 

Courthope,  W.  J.,  on  Pope,  19, 
153 ;  on  necessity  of  truth  in 
poetry,  152. 

Cowper,  William,  lacks  force, 
88. 

Crabbe,  George,  realism,  329. 

Crawford,  Marion,  narration, 
337  ;  objective  manner,  339. 

Dante,  95,  145. 

Darwin,  Charles,  literary  in- 
sensibility of,  55. 

Defoe,  directness,  objectivity, 
339. 

De  Quincey, literature  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  power,  44,  151. 

Dickens,  sentimentality,  84 ; 
range  of  characters,  100 ; 
pathos  compared  with  Thack- 
eray's, 319. 

Dobson,  Austin,  vers  de  socie'te', 
322 ;  alliteration  and  asso- 
nance, 337. 

Donne,  John,  conceits,  127, 
326. 

Dryden,  common  sense,  of,  24 
argument  in  the  couplet,  265 
value  of  didactic  work,  323 
associative  imagination,  325 
metre  and  sentiment,  333. 

Eliot,  George,  repeats  same 
types,  100 ;  motives  in  novels 
of,    294;    over-analysis    in, 


INDEX 


349 


305  ;  use  of  painful  or  pa- 
thetic experiences,  31 8  ; truth 
in,  328 ;  treatment  of  love, 
338. 
Emerson,  defines  literature, 
36;  quoted,  86;  pathos  in 
elegiac  verse,  318;  associa- 
tive imagination,  325 ; fancy, 
326 ;  interpretative  imagina- 
tion, 327 ;  intellectual  ele- 
ment, 328. 

Fielding,  Henry,  narrative 
method,  306;  realism,  329. 

France,  Anatole,  impression- 
ism, 314. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  brilliant,  but  at 
expense  of  accuracy,  92,  141. 

Garland,  Hamlin,  quoted  on 
fiction,  301. 

Gray,  pathos  in  elegiac  verse, 
318;  metre  and  sentiment, 
333;  "poetic  diction,"  334. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  painful  or 
depressing  emotion,  318; 
untruth,  329 ;  narrative 
method,  337 ;  treatment 
of  love,  338 ;  pessimism, 
338. 

Hawthorne,  narrative,  337. 

Hazlitt,  William,  unity  in  es- 
say, 332. 

Herbert,  George,  quoted,  186 
fancy,  326. 

Herrick,  Robert,  quoted,  185 
261;  fancy,  326;  melody 
336. 

Homer,  not  antiquated,  22 
reason,  43. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  realism,  329 
lack  of  plot,  338. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  defines  poetry, 
230. 


Ibsen,  realism  of,  178. 

James,  Henry,  realism  of,  329  ; 
lack  of  plot,  338. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  on  Milton, 
19 ;  on  the  morality  of  Shake- 
speare, 323;  "poetic  dic- 
tion," 334. 

Jcnson,  Ben.,  on  poetry,  228; 
fancy,  326 ;  metre  and  senti- 
ment, 333. 

Keats,  early  criticism  on,  9; 
poetry  of  the  senses,  105; 
compared  with  Wordsworth, 
106;  relation  between  emo- 
tion and  imagination  in,  145; 
Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  unity  of, 
205,  208;  diction,  217;  tone- 
color,  271 ;  melancholy,  319 ; 
keenness  of  emotion,  320 ; 
steadiness  of  emotion,  321 ; 
rank  of  romantic  verse,  322 ; 
associative  imagination,  325 ; 
fancy,  326 ;  interpretative 
imagination,  326;  romanti- 
cism, 330 ;  lack  of  artistic 
form,  332;  metre  and  senti- 
ment, 333 ;  melody,  336. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  romantic 
fiction,  330. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  imagina- 
tion, 324;  realism,  330; 
dramatic  manner,  339. 

Lamb,  Charles,  personal  char- 
acter of  his  work,  13;  unity 
of  essay,  332. 

Lang,  Andrew,  his  criticism 
empirical,  29. 

Lemaitre,  Jules,  impression- 
ism, 314. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  unity,  333. 

Locker-Lampson,  Frederick, 
vers  de  socie'te,  322. 


350 


INDEX 


Lowell,  James  Russell,  breadth 
of  appreciation,  98;  associa- 
tive imagination,  325 ;  fancy, 
326;  unity,  333. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  style,  194- 
196;  energy,  331. 

Marshall,  H.  R.,  on  nature  of 
emotion,  55. 

Meredith,  R.,  treatment  of 
love,  338. 

Milton,  limited  range,  96 ;  real- 
ity of  his  work,  158 ;  relation 
to  his  age,  176 ;  defines  poet- 
ry, 228 ;  vividness  or  power, 
319;  steadiness  of  emotion, 
321 ;  associative  imagina- 
tion, 325  ;  metre  and  senti- 
ment, 333:  melody,  335; 
assonance,  337. 

Morley,  John,  defines  litera- 
ture, 36. 

Morris,  William,  picturesque 
epic,  275;  value  of  his  work, 
282;  melancholy,  319;  lack 
of  variety,  322 ;  rank  of  ro- 
mantic verse,  322 ;  type  of  ro- 
manticism, 330 ;  melody,  336. 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  moral  qual- 
ity of,  114. 

Newman,  John  Henry,  style, 
224;  unity,  method,  333. 

Pater, Walter,  music  the  typical 
art,  104;  on  form,  190;  his 
style,  194-196 ;  delicacy,  331. 

Pope,  relation  to  his  age,  5, 
247  ;  shallowness  of  emotion, 
172 ;  Essay  on  Man,  153 ;  lack 
of  logic,  155 ;  emotional  in- 
tention of  his  work,  233 ; 
rank,  235;  lack  of  melody, 
262 ;  use  of  couplet,  263,  267  ; 
value  of  his  didactic  poetry, 


323 ;  associative  imagina- 
tion, 325;  doubtful  truth, 
329  ;  "  poetic  diction,"  334. 
Prior,  Matthew,  vers  de  socie'te, 
322. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  motive  of 
Pamela,  338. 

Rossetti,  D.  G.,  picturesque 
epic,  275;  value  of  his  work, 
282 ;  pathos  in  elegiac  verse, 
318;  vividness,  320;  inter- 
pretative imagination,  327 ; 
romanticism,  330;  melody, 
336. 

Ruskin,  profusion,  24;  defines 
poetry,  68;  defines  imagina- 
tion, 119,  122;  pathetic  fal- 
lacy, 137 ;  style  sometimes 
charms  but  does  not  con- 
vince, 189;  vividness,  320; 
interpretative  imagination, 
327 ;  energy,  331 ;  unity, 
method,  333. 

Sainte-Beuve,  defines  a  classic, 
36. 

Saintsbury,  George,  on  biog- 
raphy in  criticism,  10;  on 
possibility  of  critical  method, 
27,  30. 

Santayana,  G.,  defines  beauty, 
71. 

Scott,  Walter,  relation  of  his 
life  to  his  work,  12 ;  range, 
101 ;  romance  compared  with 
Byron's,  157;  poems  com- 
pared with  novels,  239;  epic 
compared  with  the  pictur- 
esque, 275  ;  motive  in  novels, 
294,  description,  327;  truth 
in  novels,  328  ;  romanticism, 
330;  narration,  337;  treat- 
ment of  love,  338 ;  objec- 
tivity, 339. 

Shakespeare,    relation   to   his 


INDEX 


351 


age,  5,  14,  176;  unity  of  his 
plays,  95, 204 ;  range  of  effects, 
101,  321 ;  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
137 ;  sanity,  145 ;  Midsummer 
Night's  Bream,  truth  in,  158 ; 
ideal  quality  of,  172;  pathos, 
220 ;  constructive  power,  279 ; 
illicit  passion  in,  295 ;  trag- 
edy not  depressing,  299; 
quoted,  124,  252,  254,  260, 
272  ;  personal  feeling  in  Son- 
nets, 318;  use  of  painful 
experience,  318;  vividness, 
319;  morality,  323;  imagi- 
nation and  fancy,  324,  325, 
326 ;  pathetic  fallacy,  327  ; 
truth,  328  ;  romantic  dramas, 
330 ;  unity,  332 ;  climax  in 
structure,  333 ;  harmony, 
333 ;  effects  of  quantity, 
334;  melody,  335. 

Shelley,  Epipsychidion  and 
Prometheus,  lack  basis  in 
truth,  83, 153 ;  limited  range, 
100 ;  relation  between  imagi- 
nation and  emotion,  145 ;  de- 
fines poetry,  229;  quoted, 
244,  256;  melancholy,  319; 
keenness  of  emotion,  320 ; 
steadiness  of  emotion,  321  ; 
associative  imagination,  325 ; 
interpretative  imagination, 
326 ;  truthiu,  328 ;  lyrics  com- 
pared with  Wordsworth's, 
329 ;  intellectual  conceptions 
false,  329 ;  metre  and  senti- 
ment, 333 ;  effects  of  quan- 
tity, 335  ;  melody,  336. 

Southey,  Robert,  unreality  of 
his  romance,  179,  330. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  Faerie 
Queen,  relation  to  its  age, 
4,  247  ;  ideal  quality  of,  172 ; 
romanticism,  330;  lack  of  ar- 
tisticform,332;  melody, 336. 


Stedman,  E.  C,  defines  poetry, 
230. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  on 
the  art  of  narration,  307; 
romanticism, 330;  narration, 
337  ;  swiftness,  objectivity, 
337. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin,  popularity  of, 
80. 

Swift,  relation  to  his  age,  3; 
personal  force,  91 ;  style,  197, 
331 ;  definition  of  style,  218 ; 
power  of  emotion,  320 ;  as- 
sociative imagination,  325. 

Swinburne,  A.  C,  vicious  prose 
style,  219 ;  value  of  his  po- 
etry, 282;  musical  charm, 
322 ;  elegiac  verse,  328 ;  un- 
truth in,  329 ;  metre  and  sen- 
timent, 333  ;  melody,  336 ; 
alliteration  and  assonance, 
337. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  profuse  style, 
224;  quoted,  186;  associative 
imagination,  325. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  contrasted 
with  Pope,  6  ;  The  Princess, 
206;  obscurity  in,  214;  ar- 
tistic elaboration,  221,  224; 
relation  to  his  age,  247 ;  metre 
of  In  Memoriam,  267 ;  allit- 
eration, onomatopoeia,  asso- 
nance, 268-272;  failure  in  dra- 
ma, 280;  quoted,  89,  244,  248, 
254, 267, 270 ;  grounds  of  emo- 
tion, Maud,  319;  vividness, 
320;  lack  of  unity,  The 
Prmcess,  Maud,  321,  332; 
range  of  emotion,  322 ;  eth- 
ical purpose,  323 ;  associa- 
tive imagination,  325 ;  inter- 
pretative imagination,  327; 
truth  in,  328 ;  romanticism, 


352 


INDEX 


idealism,  realism,  330 ;  stud- 
ied simplicity,  Dora,  332  ; 
metre  and  sentiment,  333  ; 
effects  of  quantity,  335  ;  mel- 
ody, 336;  assonance,  337. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  realism, 
168;  narrative  manner,  306; 
pathos,  319;  truth,  328; 
ease,  331 ;  unity,  333 ;  nar- 
ration in,  337;  treatment  of 
love,  338  ;  breadth  and  life- 
likeness,  339. 

Thomson,  James,  pure  descrip- 
tion, 327;  "poetic  diction," 
334. 

Tolstoi,  realism,  329. 

Waller,  Edmund,  quoted,  185. 

Webster,  John,  painful  emo- 
tion in,  318. 

Wilkins,  Mary,  realism,  329. 

Wordsworth,  William,  early 
criticism  on,  9;  pathos,  85; 
emotional  power,  86;  emo- 
tion not  sustained,  94;  Ode 
on  the   Intonations    of  Im- 


mortality, 103;  sight  and 
imagination,  132;  truth  in, 
153 ;  Michael,  realism  of,  180 ; 
simplicity  of,  221 ;  defines 
poetry,  228;  on  poetic  dic- 
tion, 240-242;  quoted,  127, 
242,  244,  258,  272 ;  pathos  in 
elegiac  verse,  318;  trivial 
motive,  319 ;  vividness  or 
power,  3  20  ;  emotional 
lapses,  321 ;  associative  im- 
agination, 325;  fancy,  326; 
interpretative  imagination, 
326 ;  lyrics  compared  with 
Shelley's,  329 ;  doubtful 
truth,  329  ;  realism,  329  ; 
simplicity,  331 ;  lack  of  ar- 
tistic form,  332;  metre  and 
sentiment,  333  ;  diction,  334. 

Young,  Edward,  "  poetic  dic- 
tion," 334. 

Zola.  Emile,  realism  of,  178, 
329;  his  theory  of  fiction. 
302. 


THREE    STUDIES    IN 
LITERATURE. 


BY 


LEWIS  EDWARDS  GATES, 

Assistant  Professor  of  English  in  Harvard  University. 
Cloth.     i2mo.    $1.50. 


FRANCIS   JEFFREY.  ASPECTS   OF  THE 

CARDINAL   NEWMAN.  ROMANTIC    PERIOD   OF 

MATTHEW   ARNOLD.  ENGLISH   LITERATURE 


"  Professor  Gates  is  fortunate  in  his  subjects ;  his 
subjects  are  fortunate  in  his  justly  discriminating 
appreciation.  The  reader  is  fortunate  in  his  illumi- 
nating treatment  of  these  notable  characters,  often 
misunderstood  and  disparaged,  —  the  brilliant  re- 
viewer, the  spiritual  rhetorician,  the  humanistic  critic. 
These  masterly  Studies  should  be  in  the  hands  of 
all  students  of  our  literature  in  this  century." 

—  Outlook. 

THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY, 

66   FIFTH   AVENUE,   NEW   YORK. 


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MAR  11 


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T96F 

1968  1 
1968 

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